


It's Not as Easy as Just Wandering into A Forest and Killing the Witch

by AntagonizedPenguin



Series: How Best to Use a Sword [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A little angst here and there, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BDSM themes, Blindfolds, Bondage, Cum Eating, Despite the foregoing tags there is fluff everywhere, Fluff, Hand Jobs, In both senses of that term, It takes a while but they do eventually have one, It's all consentual though, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Most of their sex toys are plants, Mostly Dialogue, Nudity in Front of Strangers, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Plant bondage, Safewords, Sex with plants, Slightly wonky power dynamics, Spanking, The BDSM themes get more overt as chapters progress, The minor character is a plant, The vibrator is a plant, Vibrator, Voyeurism, With Plants, time outs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:29:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 43
Words: 89,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntagonizedPenguin/pseuds/AntagonizedPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.</p><p>Ron wasn't supposed to get captured by a plant while searching for the witch. </p><p>He wasn't supposed to be naked when it happened.</p><p>He wasn't supposed to have to rely on the witch for help escaping.</p><p>The witch wasn't supposed to be cute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Not as Easy as Just Wandering into A Forest and Killing the Witch

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm going to write a cute little thing about a guy stuck in a plant!" *proceeds to spend five days despairing as it gets longer and longer*

“Hello.”

“Hi.” Ron tried to act as normal as he could given the circumstances. He thought he succeeded very well, considering he was laying on the ground, trapped under a plant and not wearing any clothes. He smiled his best smile up at the boy who had greeted him, who was wearing a long coat and carrying a basket full of mushrooms. 

The boy blinked down at him. “Did you know you’re in my garden?” He was dark-haired, kind of angular in the face and had dirt on his nose. 

“I did not know that, actually.” Ron said.

“Well, you are.”

“Okay. Sorry for trespassing, then.” Ron wondered if this was the woods witch he was looking for. Seemed likely, since he had a garden that contained a plant that snatched people and trapped them and another plant, just in the corner of Ron’s vision with a huge purple bulb that was obviously not normal.

The bulb seemed to Ron to be growing bigger, but he had more pressing concerns. 

“That’s okay.” The boy said, blinking. “Did you know you’re trapped in chokevine?”

“That I did notice, actually.” The plant had started by wrapping around his ankle and the more Ron had tried to get out the more it had ensnared him, until he ended up lying on his back in the dirt, completely tied up by the plant. “Why do you have chokevine in your garden?”

“To trap cute adventurers and stop them from coming to my house and killing me.” Ron flushed and couldn’t help but fidget, which caused the plant to tighten a little around his chest. “I’m a witch, so sometimes that happens.” 

It suddenly occurred to him that he had no way of hiding or covering himself at all, and that was pretty embarrassing. The embarrassment excited him in a way that was unfortunate because he wasn’t wearing pants to hide it, and then he got embarrassed about that too. 

Ron could sense a cycle beginning here and tried not to think about it. “So.” He struggled a bit, found he couldn’t move his arms. “Could you maybe let me out?”

“No.” The witch said. “The chokevine will loosen if you relax for a bit. It tightens if you struggle or pull at it.”

“I’ve noticed. You can’t…you know, magic it off?” It was a bit crazy that he was asking the witch he was here to kill for help, but hey. He didn’t want ‘trapped by plant, starved to death, naked, sexually confused and excited’ on his headstone. 

“No.” The witch shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt this plant. I like this plant. It’s doing its job really well for me. Did you know you’re naked?”

“Really?” Ron tried to look down, found he couldn’t really. “No, I didn’t. Thanks for pointing it out.”

“You’re welcome. Did you maybe walk by the castlesbane? It spits an acid that dissolves inorganic material.” 

“Are you serious?” Ron asked, closing his eyes for a second. Of all the witches who (probably) roamed the world, why did he have to go after the one who couldn’t read sarcasm? “Yes, I knew I was naked. I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.” The witch paused, looked him up and down very slowly. “I don’t think you’re really in a position to be sarcastic, do you?”

“I’m always in a position to be sarcastic.”

“If you say so.” The witch looked around. “Why are you naked, then? I don’t see any clothes. I mean you’re cute, but this is a little direct.”

“They’re…” Ron groaned a little. “They’re on the other side of the river.” He couldn’t see the river, but it was just a few feet away, and the witch turned to look at it. “I was bathing.”

“Oh!” The witch said, smiling. “I see now. The chokevine has tendrils in the river.”

“I noticed.”

“It catches fish for me, sometimes. You’re a good plant, aren’t you?” He said, in a baby voice. 

“Really?”

“No really, it is. I like fish, but I can’t catch them, so it’s nice of the plant to catch it for me. Didn’t you notice that there was chokevine in the water?”

“I didn’t think to look.”

The witch nodded. “You’re a bit dumb, aren’t you? You must be here because of me, but you didn’t think that I might have traps?”

“Hey, I’m not dumb!” Ron protested, though he thought that the whole ‘being tied up by a plant while naked in your yard’ thing might seem like pretty strong evidence to the contrary. “It’s my first time, give me a break!” Shit, he hadn’t meant to say that. Ron reddened again and tried to look away. 

“It’s your first time and you came after me? Why?” The witch asked. “Don’t you guys usually start with smaller things? Like rats in basements and sentient balls of slime? I don’t really like those things, they’re a bit weird.”

Yes, usually they were supposed to start with those things. “Well, whatever. I do things my way.” Ron told the witch.

“How’s that working out for you?” 

“Shut up. I heard there was a woods witch kidnapping little kids from the nearby towns and I was the only one who could help.”

“Oh!” The witch snapped his fingers. “That’s my aunt Julia. She lives a couple of miles south of here.” 

“What.” Ron groaned, thankful that he was immobile so he couldn’t bang his head into the ground. “You’re not even the right witch?”

“No. I don’t need little kids. Don’t worry, by the way. Aunt Julia’s going to give them back in a few days. She just needs to socialize the goblins that live under her house.”

“Oh.” He said that as if it were a perfectly logical reason to kidnap kids. Obviously it was for a witch. “Okay. I guess I’ll leave her alone, then.”

“Sure.” Obviously he missed the sarcasm again. “I’m James, by the way.”

“Ron.”

“Nice to meet you, Ron. I’m going to go put these mushrooms away now. The chokevine will loosen if you relax for about a half hour or so. You’ll want to move out from under it slowly. You should come and visit sometime when you don’t want to kill me. You can even wear clothes if you want, but I won’t complain if you don’t.” 

“Wait, hey!” But James just carefully stepped over him and headed away from the river, to where his house probably was. “Help me!”

“No.” James called back. “You can use the half-hour to think about the appropriate timing to employ sarcasm.” 

“Wait! I’m sorry!” Ron wasn’t, but it was worth a shot. Or maybe it wasn’t since James didn’t answer and didn’t come back. Waste of a perfectly good insincere apology. 

“Fine.” He said to himself, and to the plant. “I can wait half an hour then I’ll go tell him what I think.” He considered. “I’ll wait half an hour, go get my pants and then tell him what I think.”

The plant didn’t disagree with him, and Ron took a moment to reflect on the fact that he was talking to a plant before just sighing. “Alright, I’m relaxing now. I’m very calm and have no worries.” 

How did he know if he was relaxing enough? How relaxed did he have to be? Was ‘not expecting an attack right now’ relaxed enough, or should he go all the way to ‘sitting in the yard on a lazy day with nothing to do?’ How did the plant measure how relaxed he was, anyway? Was it a mind-reading plant? God, Ron hoped not, because there was all kinds of stuff he didn’t want it telling James. Did it talk back to James? Hopefully not or James would know Ron had been picturing him naked just now. James looked (in Ron’s imagination) pretty good naked.

It was a bit hard to relax when he knew there was a witch nearby, possibly watching him. Maybe James had just been saying that so he’d let his guard down and he planned to turn Ron into a frog or something. Still, it was the only hope he had and he tried his hardest to do as he’d been told.

It did not work, and Ron started to get frustrated. He was relaxed! He literally couldn’t be more relaxed if he were asleep! But the sun was creeping up in the sky and it was nearly noon, which meant he’d been here for a couple of hours now. It was hot and mosquitos kept biting him. “I’m going to have the weirdest sunburn.” Ron said aloud, thinking about the leafy vines criss-crossing his body. He was going to have to stay out of public baths for a couple of days until it faded.

“Yeah, you are.” Ron jumped—or would have, if he’d been able to move—at James’s voice from above his head. “If your skin starts peeling off, can I have the flakes? It’s hard to find human skin without, you know, skinning people.”

“How long have you been there?” Ron demanded, his voice most definitely not cracking.

“A couple of minutes. I’ve been drawing you and everything. You’re not very observant.”

“Yes, I am!”

“Okay. Did you know it’s been two hours? You should have got free by now.” 

“I…can you move so I can see you?”

“You’re not in much of a position to be making demands, you know.” But James did move, sitting in the garden beside Ron’s head, right in front of that purple plant. He had changed into a white shirt and a dirty pair of shorts with a lot of pockets. He was holding a sketchpad and a piece of charcoal. “Oh, you have a mosquito bite right there, it looks itchy.” Ignoring Ron’s protest, James reached down and scratched at a spot just above Ron’s navel. “There you go.”

“You are not very nice.” Ron said, trying not to fidget with the itch that had, obviously, been made worse. 

James gave him a look. “Are witches known for being nice where you’re from? Besides, you came to kill me.”

“I came to kill your aunt, technically.” 

“That’s not making me feel bad for you. I like Aunt Julia. Did you know you’ve got an erection?”

“Yes, I did!” He had for a while now, ever since accidentally thinking about James naked. “Look, if I give you something in return, will you help me get out?”

James looked him up and down again. “You don’t have anything to give me.”

“I have some money.”

“Not with you. And besides, I don’t need money.”

“Fine, what do you want?”

“I want all of your clothes, supplies and weapons.” James said immediately.

“What? I can’t give you all that! That’s literally everything I have!” The chokevine tightened some more around Ron even though he didn’t think he was moving. 

“Okay, fine. I want to kiss you instead then.”

“No, I…” But then Ron thought about it and, well, there were certainly parts of him that didn’t think that was a bad trade. “Okay, I guess. That’s all?”

“Yeah, that’s all. I already went and found all of your stuff anyway. It’s in my house.”

“Hey!”

“It was on my property.” James shrugged. “Or it was after I moved it to this side of the river out of worry that it might be stolen if you left it alone much longer.”

“It wasn’t going to get stolen, you little…nobody is in these woods!”

“I am, and you are, and my aunt and my cousins and my grandmother, and the children Aunt Julia kidnapped and her goblin tenants, and some fairies and a centaur or twelve. Anyway I’m going to kiss you know.”

“Fine.” Ron grumbled, closing his eyes expectantly. 

A weight settled on his chest and Ron opened his eyes again to see James straddling him. “Why are you closing your eyes?”

“Because that’s what you do when you’re going to kiss someone.” _And also why are you sitting on me?_ But Ron couldn’t quite bring himself to ask that question and he decided to blame it on the fact that he could barely breathe because James was heavy. 

“Is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I was asking you. Is it your first time doing this too? Wow, all the things you saved for me. You really know how to make a witch feel special.” Before Ron could get angry and totally dish out a proportionate and measured, yet biting and intelligent response to that, James leaned down, brushing their noses together. “Well. I’m going to keep my eyes open if that’s okay.”

“Okay, well, mmph.” James kissed him quite suddenly and Ron just pretended that he’d been planning on not saying anything else. It was kind of nice, the kissing. It kind of just kept going, though, and it continued to be nice to Ron wasn’t really complaining, but it was a bit surprising. He’d been expecting like a chaste peck or something, but that clearly wasn’t what James had had in mind. 

When and how James’s tongue had worked its way into Ron’s mouth was a question Ron would ponder later. At night, under the blankets and with the help of his hand, probably. But for now he just enjoyed it, reciprocating as best he could figure out. Really as far as payments went this wasn’t so bad. 

James pulled away after a while and it took Ron a second to figure out what had happened. “Hey.” He wished he could clean the drool that was rolling down his cheek. 

“Hey what?” James said, sitting up and wiping his mouth, flushed in the face. 

“What are you doing? I thought we were kissing.” 

“We were.” James told him. “And I’m done now.”

“I’m not!” Ron said, with more heat than he meant to. The chokevine tightened around him a bit more, a piece of it wrapping around his throat now. 

James reached down and carefully pulled that one away. “Be careful, it’s not called chokevine for nothing, you know. Anyway, do you want me to kiss you some more or do you want me to help you out?”

Ron wanted to ask why James couldn’t do both, but he did manage to make himself remember the mission at hand. “Okay, right. So…let me out now?”

“Yeah.” James settled back beside Ron, picking up his sketchpad again. “Do you want some lunch? You must be getting hungry.”

He was, actually, but Ron wasn’t interested in food right now. “You’re supposed to let me out!”

“I’m trying. I’m going to help you relax, since you can’t do it on your own.” James tsked. “Food would help.”

“No it wouldn’t.” Ron grumbled. “Food gives me energy. If I eat after dark I can’t sleep.”

“You’re hilarious.” James giggled a little, and it was very cute and made Ron very frustrated. “Okay. Well, I have an herb I can give you that will relax your muscles, then.”

“That sounds like a drug.” Ron said, shaking his head as best he could. “No way. I’m not doing that, think of something else.” 

“You’re impossible.” James sighed. “You ask for my help and then won’t let me help. What do you want from me?”

“Magic the plant away!”

“No.” James looked down at him, thinking. 

“You suck.” Ron told him. “You’re the worst witch. I want to see your credentials.” 

“I feel the same way about you and heroing.” James informed him, sighing again. “Okay. I think I know why you’re so tense.”

“I think it’s because of this fucking plant that I’m tied to!”

“Language. And don’t be mean to the plant or I’ll let it eat you. I think that you probably need to masturbate.”

“What the hell.”

“Don’t you think you might relax if you did that? That’s what usually happens for me.”

“Well…” Ron averted his eyes, wishing the sun weren’t so hot. “I guess that’s not…the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You seem to talk quite a lot, so no. I’d imagine it’s not even in the top one hundred.”

“Shut up.” Ron grumbled. “I can’t exactly…do that when I’m all tied up.” _And when you’re sitting right there._

“It’s okay, I already promised to help you.” 

“What, no, I…” Ron cut himself off before any more words could come out and keep him tied to a plant forever. He didn’t…actually object to the idea. At all. It was just a little, a lot, embarrassing. Which in itself, Ron was realizing, he didn’t specifically object to either. “Okay, well. I guess that’s okay. But I don’t want you to watch.”

“You don’t want me to watch.”

“No.” Ron insisted, still looking away. “It’s too weird.” He didn’t think he could handle James looking at him the whole time—which was likely to be like five seconds at this rate—anyway. “Just keep your eyes closed. It’s not like it’s hard to do.”

James sighed very dramatically. “Fine. God.” He made a point of closing his eyes and then reached out for Ron blindly, groping until he found what he was looking for. One good squeeze might have done it, but Ron realized almost right away that something was wrong.

Part of the chokevine was wrapped around the base of his dick. 

“Oh, shit.” James started jerking, kind of awkwardly at first but quickly getting into a rhythm that was way too fast for the fact that it couldn’t possibly come to anything. “James, I…James…” It was…very, very hard to form words at all, and putting them into sentences was a difficult task indeed. “James…” It was definitely a whine and he was definitely going to be mortified about that later. 

“You’re adorable, you know that?” James muttered, not pausing. “It makes me want to keep you tied up so you can’t ever leave.” 

“No, James…you have to…look. You have to look.”

“Mm. You told me I wasn’t allowed to look, remember? I’m respecting your wishes in this, Ron.”

“No, just open your eyes!”

James did, and the smirk that lasted a split-second told Ron that he had _known._ “You really don’t get that the person tied to the ground doesn’t get to give orders, do you? Someone needs to teach you how the world works, I think. Oh hey, you’ve got a little bit of plant wrapped around here.” He reached down and gently uncoiled that terrible little vine, freeing Ron’s dick. And immediately squeezed so tightly that the chokevine may as well have still been there. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

“What are you doing?” A tear rolled down Ron’s cheek and he tried to buck up and down against the ground, wishing he could move even a little bit. “Let go…”

“No. I’m tired of how rude you’re being. You just gave me an _order,_ do you understand that?”

“No, I didn’t mean…”

“Yes, you did. Now, here’s how I see this.” James said, and Ron thought he sounded very dangerous all of the sudden. “I opened my eyes because you wanted me to, something I didn’t have to do. You owe me something now, I think.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are. So to pay me back, you’re going to ask me very, _very_ politely to stop squeezing. If you can’t do that, I’m going to put that vine back where I found it and leave you out here for another hour.”

“No. No, please don’t do that. Please, don’t…” 

“Please is a good start.” James told him, in a strangely encouraging tone. 

“Please…” Ron was on fire with how much needed this. It hurt, it hurt, so much, he just needed James to _let go._ “Please, James. I’m sorry I was so rude. I won’t do it again, really. I just…please, let go. Please, can you please let go. I need you…I’ll do anything you want, just please…”

“Okay.” James loosened his grip, and gave Ron one last tug, taking Ron off the cliff he’d been dangling over. For a minute or twenty he was lost in the sensation of falling, and when he finally stopped James was sitting up by his head, patting his hair. “Good boy. You did a good job. See how easy that was, you did such a good job.”

“I’m not a dog.” Ron slurred, totally ignoring how nice this felt. 

“Okay.” James patted his head once more before moving back into Ron’s line of vision. “Don’t you feel much better now?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He meant it, but Ron didn’t have the energy to use more words. 

“You’re welcome. The plant should loosen up soon. Um, in the meantime, would you mind if I masturbated as well?” For the first time Ron noticed the tent James was pitching and he smiled blearily. 

“Nah, go ahead. Knock yourself out.” 

“That seems unnecessarily violent.” James took off his shorts and Ron didn’t have much choice but to lay there and sort of just watch as he played with himself. Ron thought vaguely that it would be awesome if he could help, and thought a lot less vaguely that the sounds James was making were unfairly cute, all things considered. 

After a minute James came into his hand, looking down at it for a second with apparent interest before wiping it on Ron’s belly. “Hey.”

“You’re dirty anyway.” James said, wriggling down and lying beside Ron, his head on Ron’s shoulder. “Going to take a nap.”

“Hey. No. You’re supposed to let me out now.” But it felt very nice to have James right there and Ron was having a hard time coming up with things to protest about it. 

“You have to relax. Half an hour, remember? Nice and relaxed after a nap. I’ll get you out then.”

“Oh.” James had already closed his eyes, smiling. “Okay then.” A nap didn’t seem like such a terrible idea, really. So Ron shut his eyes as well.

When he opened them again, the sun had moved significantly in the sky from where it had been and James was almost on top of him, head on Ron’s chest. Ron was so absorbed in that particular thing that it took him a second to realize something a little more important. “Hey. James. James, wake up. James!”

“Ugh.” James said, lifting his head. “Okay. Not waking me up is a rule that we’re going to have. We…” He tried to move, but the chokevine that had wrapped around him kept him in place. “Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Oops.”

“You think?” Ron tried to keep his voice level. “And you called me dumb.”

“You are.” James shifted back and forth and found that the plant was still holding both of them. “This is your fault. You obviously shifted around in your sleep and made the plant move again.”

“My fault.” James was the one who had somehow rolled on top of him, and it was his fault? 

“Yes.” James sounded just a little proud. “You’re catching on to things more quickly now. The nap obviously did you some good.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to get out of this now?”

“Language.” James told him, and sighed. Ron heard a snap and the leaves and vines turned brown, the sense of restriction disappearing in an instant. James pushed himself up, brushing dead foliage off of himself, and looked at the plant sadly. “Look what you made me do.”

“I didn’t make you do anything.”

“Yes you did.” James sighed again, fell back onto Ron’s chest to stop him from getting up. “I liked that plant. You made me wilt it. It’ll take a whole year to grow back like it was. This is all your fault.”

“I’m…sorry?” Ron wasn’t sure he really was—he didn’t have a lot of compassion for the plant that had tried to strangle him. 

“You’d better be. You’re going to have to do its job in the meantime.”

“What?” Ron tried to sit but was held down by James’s weight. He couldn’t really bring himself to throw the witch off. 

“You have to stay here, and do the plant’s job for me for a year until it grows back.” James said, speaking slowly and clearly. “It’s only fair.”

“The plant’s job.” Ron repeated, trying to remember what James had said earlier. “Stopping cute adventurers from trying to kill you?”

“And catching me fish.” James nodded against Ron’s chest, sounding sullen. “And giving me something pretty to look at in this part of the garden. I’ll let you do that in other places too, though.” 

Ron thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t like he had any plans for the year. And even though he knew he was probably supposed to say no and run, he really kind of didn’t want to do that at all. Staying here with James seemed like a pretty good idea to him at the moment. “Well. I guess I can do that.” 

“Good. I’ll feed you and house you and everything.” James told him. “I’ll take really good care of you. I only have one bed though, so that’s where you’ll have to sleep.”

Ron smirked. “And where are you going to sleep, then?”

“Right here.” While Ron went red at that, James yawned. “I’m going to finish my nap now. Don’t wake me up or I’ll spray you with spider pheromones.” 

“Uh…okay. Sure.” And James was out like a candle, breathing softly through his mouth. He was…really, very, very cute. And asleep he looked vulnerable and helpless. 

Really, all things considered, Ron didn’t think this whole ‘witch-hunting’ mission had gone that badly. 

Just as he was about to doze off again he heard a hissing sound and glanced to the side. That bulbous purple plant from earlier had gotten more bulbous and more purple and was oozing some sort of goop. “Uh. James. James. That plant’s going to blow. James.” He shook the witch lightly. “You don’t have to wake up. Just tell me if it’s poisonous? It’s not poisonous, right? James?”

The plant belched purple goop all over both of them, covering them in sticky slime. Ron wiped James’s face, and then his, and just sighed and lay his head down in the dirt. Whatever. They weren’t dead, so it could probably wait until they woke up. 

(When they woke up three days later, James told him the plant secreted a powerful sedative that was very valuable and blamed him for wasting it).


	2. One Must Be Careful of the Words One Uses When Speaking With a Witch

“So…”

“So?” James didn’t look up from the basket of flowers he was sorting through, with some arcane system that Ron didn’t understand. 

“Um.” After three days, it almost seemed like a stupid question to be asking. Like, the fact that he hadn’t asked it three days ago may have meant the time limit on asking had run out. But there had never really been a chance until now. 

“You need to mash those more evenly, otherwise the paste will be lumpy and healing poultices will be highly flammable.”

“Right.” Ron looked down at the bowl of flowers he was…mashing. Because that was something that witches did with flowers, apparently. “Anyway. When are you going to…you know.”

“I don’t know. I can’t read your mind, Ron.”

Well, that was a relief. 

“And we’re too far away from the plants that can.”

Ron sighed. Of course. “Can I have my clothes back?”

James looked at him strangely. “What clothes? I’ve never known you to own clothes. I assumed you were a nudist.”

“What…” Ron took a second to just…not know what to say. “My clothes. That you stole. They’re sitting right there on your dresser.”

“Oh, those? I told you, I found those. They’re mine now.”

“Well, they were mine before!”

“Okay.” James said. “They aren’t yours now. And no, you can’t have them.”

“Why not?” This was foolish, Ron thought. He could just go and get the clothes from the top of the dresser. It wasn’t like they were hidden or anything. But something made him not want to do that. 

“Well, first of all, I think they’d irritate that silly-looking sunburn you’ve got.”

“And whose fault is it that I have this fucking sunburn in the first place?” Ron asked angrily, mashing the flowers harder than necessary. 

James flashed him a look. “I don’t know, Ron. Whose fault is it that you got sunburnt?”

Embarrassed more by how easily James’s tone cowed him than anything, Ron looked away. “Uh. Mine.” He mumbled.

“Speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“Mine!” He said louder. “It’s my fault.”

“Why?”

“Because I couldn’t keep still for half an hour.” 

“That’s right.” James said, patting his head. “Good boy. I wouldn’t be taking very good care of you if I let you put on scratchy clothes over that sunburn, would I?”

James had this way of making Ron sound like a small child he was taking care of that Ron wasn’t entirely sure he didn’t like. “What about after the sunburn fades?”

“No.” James said, looking back down at the flowers. “I prefer you like this. You’re nice to look at.”

“I would be nice to look at with clothes on too!”

“I don’t want to take that risk.” James told him, rising and taking half of the flowers to the other side of the cluttered hut and putting them in the washbasin. 

Ron sighed, went back to mashing the flowers. “Okay, I get it.” He said, after thinking about it for a second. “I want something from you, so you want something from me first. So…what do you want?”

James watched Ron for a minute. “You’re trying to earn the right to wear clothing?”

“Yes, if that’s what I need to do.”

“Okay.” James said, looking around at all the plants and vegetables and books and random paraphernalia that he had. It was a good thing Ron didn’t actually have any stuff, because it never would have fit in here with all of James’s junk. “I want you to stop swearing.” 

“What.”

“You swear too much.” James said. “I don’t like it.”

“So I stop, you’ll let me wear clothes?”

“Yes.” James said. “But if you swear, I’ll take them away again.”

“Okay.” Ron said, thinking it wouldn’t be that hard. “Done.”

“Good.” James said, nodding, and then he turned and started rooting around in a drawer.

After a minute, Ron was still waiting. “So…”

“So?”

“Can I have my clothes back now?”

“No.” James said. “You haven’t demonstrated that you can stop swearing yet.” 

“How the fuck do I demonstrate…shit. Damn. No, sorry. I didn’t mean…” Maybe this was going to be harder than he thought. Something about James brought out vulgarity in him. 

James giggled, came up from the drawer with a jar of suspicious looking powder, which he inspected carefully. “Let’s try going a week without any swears, okay? If you can do that, I’ll give you the first part of an outfit. And then other week after that I’ll give you another one.”

“A week?” Ron wasn’t whinging, no way. That was totally his normal voice. “That’s…a really long time not to say the fuck word.”

“Apparently.” James said, trying to open the jar and not succeeding. “A year is even longer. You did hear me earlier, right? If you can’t refrain, I’ll take back whatever you’ve earned.”

“Unnng.” Suddenly this was sounding a lot harder. “Okay. I don’t suppose there’s anything else I could do instead?”

“No.” James said, still trying to twist the cap off the jar. “You already agreed to this.”

“Fine.” Ron sighed, trying not to sound petulant. “Is there something I could do in the meantime? Something a little more immediate? Just so I can have at least something to wear and not be totally naked for another week?”

“You’re really very demanding, you know that?”

“I don’t think wanting to wear clothes is an unreasonable demand.”

“I do.” But James sighed, shaking his head. “Fine. Open this jar for me.”

Ron blinked. “What?”

“Open this jar for me.” James repeated, more slowly. 

“That’s all?”

“Yes. I can’t get it open and I need this powder for the spell I want to cast on these flowers here. Open it for me and I’ll give you something to wear.” 

“Um. Okay.” Ron set the mashing bowl aside and stood, taking the jar out of James’s hands. They were kind of small hands, Ron thought. Not that he minded. 

He expected there to be some sort of catch, like the jar would bite him or opening it would summon ghosts or something, but it was just on a little too tight and after a minute’s straining, Ron managed to pop the lid off. Some of the powder poofed out and covered his face and Ron wiped it off, sneezing. “That’s not poisonous, is it?”

“No.” James said, taking the jar back happily. “It’s just some crushed herb and deer horn shavings. Why do you keep asking me if things are poisonous? Hardly anything in this house is poisonous.”

“But you won’t tell me what is!” Ron protested. “Fine. What are you making in there?”

“Poison.” James told him, sprinkling a few pinches of powder into the basin before closing the jar again. “You want something to wear now. Hold on.” 

“Okay.” Ron sat and finished mashing the flowers while James added what looked like ordinary water from a vial and then some terrible-smelling gunk from another jar, and what might have been a dead mouse. After all that, he rooted around in cupboards behind Ron for a minute, and Ron felt something land on his head.

“What’s this?” He reached up and grabbed it. “A hat?”

“Yes.” James said, already turned away from him and looking at his poison recipe again. “Those flowers look mashed enough.”

“You’re giving me a hat?”

“Yes. It’s a nice hat, too. It’s green. My mother made it.”

The hat was one of those hats that people wore to look good rather than actually protect their head or face from anything. It was kind of cute, Ron thought, and pictured James wearing it. “I, um. This wasn’t really what I meant.”

“I think the words you were looking for there were ‘thank you.’” 

“Right.” Ron said, putting the hat back on. “Thank you. But when I said something to wear, I was thinking more like pants, or even my smallclothes.”

“You’re a little bit ungrateful, you know that?” James asked, waving his hands over the washbasin in a way that Ron supposed meant magic was happening. “You asked for something to wear and I gave you something to wear. If you wanted smallclothes you should have said that. Oh, I noticed earlier that there are a lot of weeds in the garden. Could you go pull them?”

“Will you give me pants if I do?”

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Language. Because you’re being ungrateful. And because taking care of the garden is part of your job anyway, and because we already have a deal about you getting clothes. There are a lot of reasons, is what I’m saying.”

“You are fucking impossible.”

James turned to look at him. “Do you want to lose your hat privileges?”

“No!” Ron said, taking a step back and nearly tripping over the chair, hands on his head to protect his new hat. “This is my hat. You can’t take it away from me now.”

“Then stop swearing. And go weed the garden.”

“Fine.” Ron growled, turning for the door. He could see when he wasn’t getting anywhere. Maybe he could bring it up again tonight when James was in a better mood. Besides, it was only the two of them around, Ron reasoned. It wasn’t like there were people to see him dressed in a hat and sunburn and nothing else. He went outside to weed, leaving James to his magic.

It was only later, while applying medicinal creams to Ron’s face, that James remembered to tell him that the crushed herb and deer horn shavings powder also attracted bees in great numbers.


	3. The Parameters of Indentured Servitude Should Be Negotiated Carefully

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, I'm starting to get way too many ideas for these characters. Somebody stop me. 
> 
> Mentions of gross centipedes in this chapter. Be warned.

“Where are we going?”

“The woods.”

“We’re already in the woods.”

“We’re going to a different part of the woods.”

“Why?”

James sighed. “You know, I think it’s very strange that you only ever ask me questions after it’s too late. Why didn’t you want to know where we were going when I said ‘come with me, we’re going for a walk’?”

“I didn’t want you to think I had a problem with going for a walk.”

“You’re hilarious.” James sighed again. “There’s a nest of centipedes up this way. I don’t want them to come any closer to the house.” 

Ron paled a little bit. “You’re not going to make me kill a bunch of centipedes, are you?”

“No.” James said, taking a sealed jar of pink liquid from his pocket. “I’m going to kill them with this poison I made.”

“Thank God.” Ron said, relieved. “So, what’s the deer for?” They had found a dead fawn in the woods and James was making Ron carry it on his back. 

“I thought we’d try to lure them out.” James told him. “I doubt they’ll come and drink the poison just because I asked nicely. Unless you’d like to try fishing them out of their nest?” James asked, with a significant glance down. “You’ve got a nice little worm there to use as bait.”

“No! No, thank you!” Ron said, perhaps too emphatically, but given the situation he didn’t know that being too emphatic was a possibility. “I’m sure the deer is fine, and please don’t use me as bait!” This wouldn’t be happening if James would let him wear pants. He was four days into their no swearing agreement, and liking his chances of making it the rest of the week, so soon.

“Okay. Speaking of fishing, you haven’t caught me any fish yet. Catch me some when we get home.” 

“With what, the force of my personality?”

“You’ve got hands.” James said flatly.

“I…” Ron just suppressed a groan. “Okay.” 

“Here we are.” James announced in reply. “You can put the deer down in front of the mound there.” There was a fairly large insect mound on the ground beside the trail, reaching nearly Ron’s waist. 

“How big are these centipedes?”

“Big enough that I don’t want them near my house.” James told him, opening the jar and pouring the poison all over the deer. He looked around and headed for a tree opposite the mound. “Help me climb up here.”

Ron obediently trotted over and gave James his hands as a stool. James stepped up, using Ron’s shoulder as a further boost, and swung himself onto a branch. “You can come up too.”

“Can you help me?”

“No. You’re too heavy.” 

Ron was starting to think that sighing was going to become his default mode of expressing himself. “Fine.” The tree was rough enough that Ron was able to get hand and footholds while he scrambled up to reach the branch, scraping practically every inch of himself along the way. He bit back swears every few seconds, and his was pretty sure his tongue was bleeding by the time he was finished. Finally he managed to get up and sat beside James in the tree. “Ow.”

“What’s the matter?”

“This is very uncomfortable.” Sitting on bark without pants was really doing nothing good for most of Ron’s lower body. 

“I’m finding it okay.”

“Of course you are, you’re wearing pants.”

“I’m sure you think you have some point there. Look, the centipedes are coming out.” 

Ron looked down to where James was pointing, and sure enough, long red centipedes were swarming out of the mound towards the deer. And they were long, nearly the length of Ron’s arm and thick enough that he probably couldn’t have gotten a hand around them if he’d been stupid enough to try. Ron gripped the tree branch very tightly. “Fuck. They’re disgusting.”

“Yeah.” The centipedes fell on the deer, swarming around it and burrowing inside its flesh. Ron looked away, feeling nauseous. “Now you see why I didn’t want them near the house.”

“Yeah.” Ron said faintly. “Good call. Good call on the tree, too. Definitely worth the scrapes.”

“I thought you’d say that.” James looked away from the centipedes as well and his gaze fell on Ron. “I’m willing to overlook that swear, by the way. Considering the circumstances.”

“Uh…” Ron went red. He hadn’t even heard himself. “Sorry. Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome. I’m really very nice. I think you’ll come to like me in time.”

“I like you now.” Ron mumbled, looking up at the leaves. 

“Really? You have a strange way of showing it. You complain a lot.”

“I’m just…still getting used to it, that’s all. The being your servant thing.” 

“I understand.” James nodded, looking almost self-conscious. “I’m still getting used to it too. I’ve never owned a person before.”

“You…seem to be doing an okay job.”

“I’m glad you think so. It’s kind of hard. It’s not easy to balance not wanting to make you uncomfortable with wanting to have sex with you every time I look at you.”

“What?” Ron nearly fell from the tree and figured he was going to come out of it with some pretty impressive scrapes on his thighs because of that. “What?”

“I said I want to have sex. But I don’t want you to think I’m forcing you just because I own you for a year. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me.”

“I…don’t.” Ron admitted, a bit shaken by the admission. James slept on top of him every night and after their initial meeting, Ron had been expecting some sort of…contact. But it had never come, and he’d been a little disappointed. James was…very cute. “I’m not uncomfortable around you.”

“Then why do you insist on wanting to wear clothes?”

“Because, I…” Ron thought about it. “I don’t know. It just…kind of feels weird being naked all the time.”

“Bad weird?”

“No. Just weird. Especially since you aren’t.”

“Oh.” James looked thoughtful. “Would you feel better if I were naked too?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll think about it. Maybe as a reward if you’re good.”

“Okay.” Ron looked off into the trees, not quite believing that this was a conversation that he was having. “I wouldn’t…mind. You know, if you want to…”

“Touch you?”

“Yeah.” It was very warm up in these trees, even with all the shade. “I mean, I belong to you, and stuff. So that seems like something you should do. If you, you know. Want to.”

“Only if you also want me to.”

“I do.”

James nodded, smiling, and scooted over to put his head on Ron’s shoulder. “I was hoping you would say that someday. I didn’t figure it would be this quickly, though. You’re kind of easy.”

“Hey!” James just smiled and reached down, taking Ron in his hand and fondling him gently. Ron got hard pretty much immediately, and decided not to complain in favour of making sure he didn’t fall out of the tree. It seemed like a very real possibility all of the sudden. It wasn’t like Ron had been able to touch himself since meeting James—he was hardly ever unsupervised and the witch slept on top of him. 

James stroked him lazily with one hand, head still on Ron’s shoulder, acting as though unaware of the effect he was having. His thumb came up and rubbed a circle around the head, and Ron whimpered. “I like it when you make noise.”

“James…” Ron made more noises, wordless pleas and grunts, clutching the tree for dear life. 

Suddenly James removed his hand and Ron made a noise that might have been a cry of pain. “What?”

“I think the centipedes are dead.”

“What.”

“I said I think the centipedes are dead. The poison must have worked.”

“Okay?” Ron really thought there were more important things at hand—specifically James’s hand—at the moment. 

“Go down and check if they’re all dead.”

“What the fuck?” Ron demanded. “No.”

“Language. And I’m not getting down until I’m sure. If any of them are still alive, you can beat them to death with that club of yours.” The glint in James’s eye told Ron he was doing this on purpose. 

Ron sighed, still panting. “James…” He didn’t bother to suppress the whinge.

“Ron, do as you’re told.”

Ron just sat for a minute, the look on James’s face and the tone of his voice making him want to drop to his knees and beg. He would probably end up doing that later anyway. But he knew that not following James’s order first was a sure way to get in trouble rather than get what he wanted. “Okay, I’m going.”

“Good boy.”

Ron twitched and nearly came on the spot. He hadn’t realized what effect that had on him, and how much he wanted James to keep calling him that. “I like it when you say that.” He admitted, embarrassed.

“I’ll keep saying it as long as you keep being good.” 

“Okay.” Smiling at little despite himself, Ron started awkwardly down the tree, realizing on his way down that not only was he going to replicate all the scrapes he’d gotten coming up, but now he was going to have to worry about a whole other problem as he tried to descend without letting his wood and the tree’s wood touch too much. 

In the end he gave up a third of the way down and just dropped to the ground for his own mental well-being. When they got back to the hut later, James kissed all of Ron’s scrapes better, so he decided it had been worth it.


	4. There Are a Number of Rules Associated with Belonging to a Witch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoy the relationship these two have.

“It’s cold.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going inside.”

“Okay.”

“You can come in once you’ve finished trimming the ficklebushes.” James told him.

“Wait.” Ron said, realizing what had just happened. “Why can’t I come in now? It’s cold.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going in where the fire is. You can come in when you’re done.”

Ron started to argue, and immediately realized there was no point and gave up. “Fine.” James patted him on the shoulder and went inside, leaving Ron alone in the garden.

It was still early autumn, but a sudden rainstorm had just passed through and left a cold snap in its wake. It would pass in a day or two but in the meantime it was unseasonably chilly. Which wouldn’t be a big deal if Ron was the type of person who was allowed to wear clothes. 

He sighed and went back to trimming the tall red bushes that had decided to grow overnight to twice their size, prompting James to worry they might try to kill the other plants or grow into the house. Both of which were probably reasonable. He was almost done, actually, so it wasn’t like he’d be out here for long. He’d been doing all the work himself anyway, with James supervising. 

An important thought occurred to him. What was he going to do in the winter? Was James really going to expect him to be out here tromping around in snow and subzero temperatures with his parts all hanging out and exposed? Ron would grow some very uncomfortable icicles and he really didn’t want to think about that. He was going to have to bring it up. Now, so that he had time to argue with James about it for weeks. He’d happily go naked in the house if that was what James wanted, but doing that outside was asking a bit much. 

Maybe, he thought as he trimmed, they could just stay inside all winter. That would solve the problem nicely. They could just stay inside, maybe even stay in bed, which would make James happy, and they could…

This line of thinking was having a predictable physical effect and Ron tried his best to ignore it as he worked, trying to clear his head now. But now that the floodgates had been opened there was no closing them and Ron couldn’t get images of himself and James in bed out of his head. They hadn’t really done all that much in terms of sex. But that certainly didn’t matter to Ron’s imagination as it teased him with any number of images.

“Ugh.” When Ron finally finished cutting back the plant he sat down in the dirt and glared at his abdomen. “You are a pain. You’re going to get me in trouble someday.” 

Ron knew that if he walked in the house like this James would likely take it as an invitation, which he certainly didn’t mind. But with James it was fifty-fifty whether he would actually get to finish. He seemed to enjoy watching Ron squirm and be uncomfortable for the rest of the day more than almost anything. Ron wasn’t in the mood to squirm and be uncomfortable, and so he reached down and grabbed himself firmly in one hand, suppressing a vague worry that James was going to be mad. Why would he be mad? And besides, he wasn’t going to know.

He knew after the first stroke that he wasn’t going to last very long. His need was too great, and the pleasure he felt at every movement was intensified by the feeling of doing something illicit, the same thing he’d used to feel when he would do this behind the house or in the barn at home, the fear that someone might walk in and see him only adding to the sensation. Ron’s hand was fast and erratic, with no time for delicacy or drawing it out. He was already so close, that…

“Okay, that’s enough.” 

Ron stopped immediately at the words, opening his eyes and knowing he looked guilty as he looked up at James. “What…” He didn’t look mad, just interested. “Have you been standing there?”

“Yes, for a minute or so. I enjoy watching you. But you’re finished now.”

“No, I’m not.”

James shook his head, crouched so he was at eye level with Ron. “You don’t get to decide that. Hands off.” 

Ron didn’t move for a long second as he looked at James’s face. His body was actually shaking with how close he’d been. It would have taken very little in that moment to bring him over the edge. Ron let himself go and put his hand flat on the ground. “Good boy.”

Ron could feel tears rimming his eyes from the deprivation. “How come I’m not allowed to…”

“Because, Ron.” James said, sitting. “You belong to me and I don’t share well. I don’t want you playing with my things without permission.” 

“Permission?” James nodded. “You mean I have to ask if I can touch myself?”

“Yes.” James said, patting his leg. “It’s okay that you didn’t know. I hadn’t told you and you’re still learning.” 

“I…” Ron was still trying to process this and get his breathing under control. As he calmed down a little more his thinking got clearer. “Okay. So, can I…”

“No.” James said firmly. “I told you you’re done for now. You can ask me again later if you like.”

Ron whimpered softly because he knew how easy it would be to ignore that order and just touch himself when James wasn’t looking, and he also knew that he wasn’t going to do that. “Okay.” 

“Ron.” James’s tone had changed a little. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“What’s that?”

“You know that…you understand that if I tell you to do something that scares you or upsets you, or that you just really don’t want to do, you can tell me no. You understand that, right?”

“Oh.” That idea hadn’t actually crossed Ron’s mind, but James hadn’t told him to do anything that he was really that opposed to. Not really. “Okay.”

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand that I can say no to you.”

“Good.” James sighed. “Remember I promised to take care of you. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, okay?”

“Okay. I know.”

James nodded, leaned forward. “I made you something.” He pulled a thin metal chain with a flat stone hanging from it out of a pocket and reached up to put it around Ron’s neck. Ron tried hard to ignore the way the fabric of James’s clothes brushed against his body. “There.” James kissed him on the forehead before moving away.

“You made this for me?” The stone was warm against Ron’s skin, and he felt a corresponding warmth inside his belly because James had never given him anything for free before.

“Yes. Well, I didn’t make the chain, but yes.” James smiled. “It’s a charm. To keep you warm when it’s cold.”

Ron blinked, peered down at it, fingering the stone. “Thank you.” He said, meaning it. He felt bad for thinking earlier that James wouldn’t be interested in his desire to stay warm.

“This way you don’t have to wear clothes and I don’t have to worry about any of the parts of you that I like freezing off during the winter.”

“I feel like you might have reversed our two interests there.” Ron said. “But thank you.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, I really appreciate it.” 

“Come inside.” James stood, brushing dirt from his pants. “I made you lunch.”

“I still need to take all of these clippings away.”

“You can do that later.” James told him, taking Ron’s hand and hauling him to his feet. “I want you to come inside and eat lunch now.”

“Okay.” Ron let James take him inside by the hand, thinking that little things like not technically owning his own body aside, he was starting to like this whole setup a lot more than he’d thought he would.


	5. Impressing the Family is Useful as Two People Build Their Relationship (Even if One Person Owns the Other)

“Ugh.”

“Ow!”

“Be quiet.”

“Why did you punch me?” Ron groaned, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. James had rolled off of him and stolen all the blankets. After punching him in the stomach. 

“Go away, I’m trying to sleep.”

“So was I!”

“Someone’s knocking on the door.” Now that James said that, Ron could hear a sharp knocking on the front door of the hut. “Go answer it.”

“They’re going to want to see you.” It wasn’t like a door-to-door shoe salesman was out wandering the woods. 

“I don’t care. Make them go away. I’m sleeping.” 

“Not anymore.”

“I will be when you stop fucking talking to me.”

“Language.” Ron smirked.

“Shut up. Take the sword I have on the dresser and kill them for me.” 

“The sword on the dresser is my sword.”

“Go away.”

Shaking his head, Ron got out of the bed. James wrapped the blankets around him in a cocoon and put his head under the pillows. He grabbed his hat from the bedside table and put it on, checked instinctively to make sure the charm was still around his neck, stretching as he grabbed the sword as well. It was nice to have it back in his hands, even for a little while. 

He wasn’t actually going to kill the guest. It just never hurt, in case someone was here to murder James or something. 

The knocking on the door started up again and Ron sighed. “I’m coming.” He muttered quietly, wondering who had come to see James and why. And why they had done it so early in the morning. 

At this point Ron didn’t even pause to consider that he wasn’t wearing clothes anymore, and so it didn’t occur to him until he’d already pulled the door open and come face-to-face with the tall woman who was there. “Good morning.” She said to him, looking surprised. Had she not thought someone would answer the door?

“What do you want?” Maybe he might have been more polite if he hadn’t just woken up. 

She looked at him suspiciously. She looked vaguely familiar, and was dressed all in black. “You’re not my nephew.”

Ron blinked, putting things together in his mind and sighing. He turned around, beckoning the woman inside. “James. Wake up. It’s your aunt Julia.” There was no answer from the back of the hut, where the bed rested in a small room. 

“You seem to have the advantage over me.” Julia remarked as she came inside, taking off her coat and tossing it carelessly over a birdcage that was stuffed with rabbit pelts. 

“Sorry. I’m Ron. I’ll make you some tea if you want. James!”

“Be quiet.” James’s voice drifted out of the bedroom. “Tell her I’m dead.”

Ron shook his head as he found the kettle, which still had water in it from last night when James had made him fill it and then decided he didn’t want tea after all. He stuck it on the stove and found the materials to make a fire. “Sorry. He’s not much of a morning person.”

“He’s a lazy fuck, is what you meant to say.” 

“Yeah, but I’ll get in trouble if I say that.” Julia smiled at him and let him make the tea, accepting the cup he eventually offered her with a smile. “What brings you here so early?”

“Well, dawn was three hours ago, so it’s hardly the break of day.” Julia said, sipping her tea with an appreciative nod as Ron sat with his own cup. “I needed to see my nephew about something. But he’s busy and I’ve found something much more interesting to talk about.” Ron coloured a little. “Any particular reason you aren’t wearing any clothes, young man?”

“Ah.” Ron said, suddenly grateful that the table hid him for the most part. “Well. I’m, uh…” He thought about a number of excuses, but somehow thought that James would be mad if he lied. “I’m not allowed.” 

“I see.” That seemed to satisfy her. “And what brings you to this part of the woods?”

That question actually embarrassed Ron more than the last one. “Well, this is a bit awkward. I came to kill you, back a few weeks ago when you were kidnapping those kids.”

“Oh, isn’t that interesting.” Julia said politely, as if they’d just discovered a mutual interest in period dramas. “You got a little sidetracked.”

“A little.”

“I’ve returned them now, if you were wondering.”

“That’s…good?”

“I do hope this doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” 

“I guess not.” He glanced behind him. “James! I’m not making you breakfast until you get out of bed!”

“Good.” Julia smiled at him. “James has never kept anyone before. I can see why he made an exception for you.”

“Um. Thanks.” Ron tried not to make eye contact. 

“If you’d prefer, I could get him to transfer whatever debt you have to me. I won’t yell at you in the mornings and I’d let you wear pants.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you.” Ron said, immediately casting around for a polite refusal, hand coming up unconsciously to touch the charm that kept cold away from him. Julia seemed nice, but…Ron liked James. “But I’m okay, thanks.” 

Satisfied, Julia nodded. “Good answer. I’ll let him keep you.”

“You didn’t get a say anyway.” Ron looked up to see James standing in the doorway to the bedroom, naked and glaring at both of them. “Get out of my house. I hate both of you.”

“That seems highly unlikely.” Julia said, bemused at whatever she was seeing in James. “Such casual nudity is unusual for you, James.”

“We’re having a naked week.” James grumbled, coming over and sitting at the table with them, swiping Ron’s tea. “So that Ron doesn’t feel as weird about not having any clothes.” He glanced at Ron. “Since we’re in week four of the no swearing agreement with not much chance of him ever earning a stitch.” 

“Fuck you.” Ron said, because whatever. He had just started over his week yesterday again, what was one extra day? 

“Not at that rate.” James growled, putting his head down on the table. “Why aren’t you making me breakfast?”

“Because you aren’t asking me politely?”

James glared at him. Ron held on for a few seconds before quietly getting up to make breakfast. “Don’t make Aunt Julia anything. We don’t feed people who wake us up.”

“You wake me up constantly and I’m feeding you.” Ron said, mostly under his breath, though he knew James could hear. “Besides, I like Aunt Julia.”

“You’ve known her for five minutes.”

“I liked you after five minutes.”

“That was different. I’m cute.” 

“Not at the moment.” 

“So.” Julia asked. “When’s the wedding?”

“Stop talking until there’s breakfast.” 

When there was eventually breakfast, Ron had to shake James awake again, which got him smacked in the arm, and then pour him tea that wasn’t cold. James still didn’t talk, so Ron turned to Julia. “So, ma’am. How are you doing?”

“Don’t call me ma’am unless you want to be castrated.” Julia told him. “My name is fine. And I’m doing quite well, though I have an infestation of pixies in my chimney that I’d like to drive away. I was hoping I could get some keepaway syrup from the plant in James’s garden.”

“That’s…” Ron had been trying to learn what all of James’s plants were, mostly so he knew which ones could kill him. “The tall greenish one with the bulbs that ooze, right?”

“Are they oozing?” James asked, lifting his head. “I didn’t notice. For how long?”

“Since yesterday. I tried to tell you, but you were too busy carving things into centaur bones so you ignored me.”

“Okay.” He said, putting his head back down and ignoring the eggs and toast in front of him. Julia was eating though. “You’ll have to harvest it today. There are jars somewhere.” 

“There you go.” Ron said to Julia. “I’ll go out and get it for you after breakfast.”

“Thank you.” Julia smiled. “I’m so glad there’s finally someone here who’s helpful.”

“I’m helpful.” James grumbled. “After lunchtime.” Julia rolled her eyes. “That’s not why you’re really here anyway. What do you want?”

“I can’t come to visit my favourite nephew?”

“I’m your only nephew.” James said, with a little more force than Ron thought was necessary. 

“Fine.” Julia reached into a pocket and pulled out an envelope. She slid it across the small table. “That’s for you.”

Finally James sat up straight, looked at the letter closely, frowned at the seal. “Okay.” He said, setting it down on top of a pile of books without opening it. “I guess you’re going to want to stay here all day now, aren’t you?”

“It hardly seems worth the two-hour walk if I don’t.”

“Okay.” James sounded more awake now, more himself. He started eating breakfast, finally. Ron wanted to ask about the letter but it was pretty clear that James didn’t want to talk about it. “I have a new divination spell that I wanted to show you.”

“Perhaps you can use it to divine where I live and visit me sometimes.”

“I’ve been very busy.” James said, around a forkful of eggs. “Ron is a handful.”

“Hey!”

James just reached out and patting him on the head in that way that Ron wasn’t ready to admit he liked. “How are the goblins?”

“They’re doing quite well now that I’ve taught them the importance of living together.” Julia said, buttering her toast. “Instead of, you know. Trying to eat me all the time.”

Breakfast passed pleasantly enough and when it was done James sent him outside. “Wash off in the river after you harvest the syrup.” He said. “It’s sticky and it smells awful.” 

“Okay. Do you want fish while I’m in the river?”

“Yeah, sure. Catch enough for all three of us.” James frowned. “And after that you can show Aunt Julia around the garden for a while.”

“So you can have a nap?”

“Yes.” James said, looking away. “Maybe if you hadn’t kept me up half the night.”

“I don’t remember it that way.” Ron said, forgetting for a moment that Julia was there. “I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t let me go to sleep until…”

Julia cleared her throat and Ron stopped with a flush. “I’m sure I don’t need the details, boys. James, let me see that divining spell while we wait for Ron to come back?”

“Sure.”

Ron went outside, casting one glance back at James and Julia as they did something at the table with a piece of paper and some crystal and bones. A divining spell. That meant they were looking for something, he thought. Ron wondered what it was. 

He quickly forgot about it, though, because James had understated quite severely how bad the keepaway syrup actually smelled and Ron had to spend two hours in the river cleaning it off after and he still wasn’t allowed back in the house for most of the day.


	6. Honesty is a Big Factor in Relationships, Even for Witches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of those chapters that I liked a lot more before I actually wrote it, hahaha. Oh well.

“You can touch yourself now.”

“What?”

“I said you can touch yourself now. You need to start listening when I talk.”

“I…didn’t ask if I could?” Ron was confused. Since their agreement about Ron playing with himself, he’d asked a few times and though James had said no once or twice, he’d also said yes most of the time, though sometimes not until hours after Ron had asked. But the last time he could remember asking was two days ago, and James had let him then. 

“No, you didn’t.” James said, looking up from the sigils he was drawing on parchment. He was sitting at the table and Ron was on the floor, pouring half-empty bottles of ink into one another so that there were full bottles and empty bottles. “But I want you to.”

“Oh.” James had never asked him to touch himself before. But Ron thought about it and realized that the rule in place that prevented him from doing it without permission actually was that James was the one who decided when he could do that. And it seemed James had decided he was going to do it now. “Okay.”

“Okay.” James said, obviously waiting. “You can go ahead and start, then.” 

“Sure.” Ron set the ink bottles carefully to the side. It seemed like James expected him to just do it here on the kitchen floor, so he leaned back and fondled himself with one hand. It didn’t take a whole lot to get himself hard, and once he was Ron started stroking himself slowly, figuring that James obviously wanted to watch and that he should give him something to see. 

James always watched him, and it was pretty much just part of Ron’s jerk-off routine at this point that James would be there, watching with expressions ranging from polite disinterest to mild boredom. He always watched, though. He didn’t look any more interested today than usual, looking down at Ron with one eye while finishing up whatever he was writing up on the table. 

Ron started vocalizing little grunts, and found it hard to keep the slow pace he’d set. He wanted to go faster, but didn’t—he wanted James to see him do it in a dignified way for once, not like some dog that had uncontrollable urges and would hump a tree. Some fluid was starting to build up around the tip and Ron shifted his grip, bringing his thumb up to smear it around, not able to stop himself from bucking his hips upward as he did so.

He tried not to imagine James doing this for him because that always made him finish too fast, but the image was such a clear one that Ron couldn’t help it, and almost as soon as it affixed itself in his mind Ron felt himself close, closer, until he knew he was ready. Now he abandoned his slow speed and started stroking faster, nearly there, and…

“Hold on.”

“No, James, no…” Ron stopped, used to this but not willing to not protest. Why would James _ask_ him to do this only to make him stop at the last minute? He often didn’t let Ron finish, but this was just mean.

“No, don’t stop.” James told him. “I just don’t want you to finish yet.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Ron grunted. Everything felt sharper with how close he was.

“Just don’t. Hold it back until I tell you.”

“I can’t!” Did James just not understand how these things worked?

“You can.” James said sternly. “And you will, Ron. Don’t finish.”

“Okay.” Ron whinged, but obediently kept going, trying to hold back his orgasm. He could _feel_ it there, building up, and he clenched his muscles and willed not to spasm or twitch, not to start the process that James had told him to wait for. “James…”

“Not yet.”

Ron nodded, kept going, biting his lip and straining nearly every muscle in his body. “I can’t…”

“Not yet, a little longer.”

Ron cried out in something akin to pain as his entire body seemed to clench, poised for a moment that he wasn’t allowed to let come, and it was too much and he wasn’t going to be able to do it and…

“Okay, finish now.”

Ron did, with a shout that he didn’t hear, pulling his hand away and letting streamers of hot seed splatter his chest and neck, his body shaking as he saw and felt nothing but white. He wasn’t sure how long he was out of it but when he came to James was beside him, patting his head and saying “Good boy, good boy.”

“Holy shit.”

“Language.” James chided, but he was smiling down at Ron. “Did you enjoy that?” Ron nodded numbly, liking the way James stroked his hair. “I’ve been thinking of training you to orgasm on command. I think you seemed receptive to it just now, so would you like to try that?”

“Okay.” Ron sometimes wondered if James was lying when he said he couldn’t read minds, because it was creepy how good he was at suggesting things that Ron hadn’t even known he’d wanted to try. 

“Okay, we’ll try that, then. Now clean yourself up.” 

Ron nodded again, began searching around with his hands for a cloth or something to wipe off with, but James stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “No. I want you to do it a different way today.”

“How?”

“The mess came out of your body, I think you should put it back in.”

“Back in?” Ron didn’t understand. It couldn’t go _back in._ He questioned James’s knowledge of human anatomy sometimes. 

James sighed. “Like this.” He reached down with a finger and ran it through the puddles on Ron’s chest, coating the finger with Ron’s spill, and brining the hand up to Ron’s mouth. “Open.”

“What…you want me to eat it?” Well, that at least made sense, he thought. 

“Your powers of observation remain as consistent as ever.” James said. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I want to know what it tastes like. I want to know if you’ll like it.”

Ron made a face. “I won’t, and if you want to know what it tastes like, you eat it.”

“No. That’s what I have you for, and I’ve told you about deciding you don’t like things before you try them, Ron. Open.”

Ron didn’t really think that this was the best place for the ‘eat your vegetables’ talk, but…well it didn’t hurt to at least try. He opened his mouth and let James stick the finger in, at first grimacing at the bitter taste but obediently licking it all off and swallowing. “Good boy.” James said, pulling his finger out. “Now you do the rest just like that.”

Ron nodded dully and did as he was told, scooping up his seed like James had and bringing it to his mouth two fingers at a time. The first scoop was slow, hesitant and Ron nearly recoiled from his own fingers as they approached his mouth, but the taste wasn’t quite as bad the second time and he thought that maybe it was more the idea that was grossing him out than anything else. 

After that he decided that the best way was to just do it quickly, not think about it too much. Ron scooped the rest up quickly, but carefully because he knew James wouldn’t like it if he missed some, and ate it, pretending it was just syrup or salad dressing or something, only with too much salt. 

He was panting by the time he was done and James had moved back up into the chair. “Come here.” He said, patting his leg. Ron sat up properly and scooted over, unsure what James wanted with that pat, settling for putting his head there. James rubbed his scalp. “How did it taste?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” James asked, obviously amused. “Why not?”

“I just…it wasn’t the worst thing ever, I guess.” Ron admitted. “It didn’t taste _good._ Mostly I think it was just salty.”

“Did you like it?” 

Ron shook his head. “Not really.”

“If I told you to eat it again, would you?”

He thought about that for a minute. It wasn’t like eating it had made him sick or anything. But James had told him that he could say no to anything he really didn’t want to do. Ron realized that he didn’t feel strongly enough about it to do that. “I guess so.”

“Okay. Then that’s how I want you to clean yourself up from now on, okay?”

“Okay.” Ron had seen that one coming. 

“I’m going to give you some more now.” James told him, lifting Ron’s head from his lap. “Maybe that will help you get used to the taste.”

“You want me to go again?” Ron asked. That was really unusual.

“No.” James shook his head. “I don’t think you heard what I said.”

Ron frowned, James had said he was going to give Ron some more cum to eat. “What, do you have some in a jar somewhere? That’s kind of weird.”

“No, Ron, I don’t have some in a jar somewhere. Well, I do, but not for drinking.” He sighed. “Sometimes I forget that you’re kind of dumb. Here.” James reached down and untied the rope that he used as a belt, loosening his pants, lifting his hips to pull them down, where they fell to the floor and pooled around his ankles. Since Ron’s head was right there it was kind of hard not to notice that James was standing at full alert. 

“Oh.” All at once Ron understood what James was getting at and his eyes widened. “Wait, really? You’re going to let me touch you?” James never let Ron touch him, and Ron asked nearly every time. He apparently preferred just doing it himself after he was finished with Ron. 

“Yes.”

“You never let me touch you!”

“Well, I am now. Unless you don’t want to?”

“No!” Ron straightened, reaching out and taking James in his hand defensively. “I do. I was just surprised.” He realized what he had done suddenly and froze, unable to take his eyes off his hand and what was in it. James was hot and hard against his palm and Ron took a deep breath, giving an experimental squeeze. James shuddered just a little bit and Ron smiled, doing it again, and again, building up a little speed as he rubbed James.

“How…Nn.” James said, and Ron felt a flush of pride that he had made the witch stop talking, even for just a second. “How do you plan to get it into your mouth from there?”

“I…” Ron stopped what he was doing, looked up at James. He saw the intention on James’s face pretty plainly and a sudden rush of excitement took hold of him. He leaned forward, not able to keep a small smile from his face and, hesitating only for a second, took James in his mouth. 

At first he tried to take too much and choked, but pulled back to a more comfortable length and then that was better. James didn’t taste like anything in particular, but Ron hardly noticed. For once he had the chance to make James feel good instead of the other way around, and he was a little more excited about that than he maybe needed to have been, but Ron didn’t care. It felt like, in this position, he was the one who was in charge of what happened and when, and that wasn’t a feeling he’d had since meeting James. 

Ron didn’t really know what to do, but he assumed it couldn’t be that hard, so he just started sort of sucking on James, unsure of how hard he should do it. James’s hands were in Ron’s hair, holding him firmly in place, so he must have been doing something right. He started sucking harder and was rewarded with a little cry from James.

He’d just figured out how to keep his teeth out of the way and realized that his tongue was there and that he should use it for something, and so licked a stripe up the underside of James’s shaft, when James’s hands tightened, pulling his hair tightly. “Ron…”

That was the only warning he got, and his mouth was filled with that same salty taste he’d had before. Ron tried to recoil but James’s hands were holding him in place and he wasn’t going to be able to hold it all in his mouth like this. James wanted him to drink it, he remembered finally, and started swallowing as best he could. Some of it dribbled down his chin, but fortunately James didn’t squirt a whole lot and so it wasn’t too hard to swallow. 

Finally, the hands pulling his hair loosened and James slumped in the chair. “Oh, God. Ron.”

Ron lifted his head, regretfully letting James fall out of his mouth. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Did you swallow it all?” Ron nodded, but James reached out and scooped up what was on his chin, smiling as he stuck his finger in Ron’s mouth to lick clean. 

James was flushed in the face and his eyes weren’t quite focused and Ron had done that to him and that made Ron giddy. “Thank you.”

“You’re thanking me?” James shook his head, moved over so he was only sitting on half the chair. “Come up here.” Ron sat beside him and James pulled him in close, kissing his cheek. “Thank you, Ron. You did a good job.”

Ron beamed, his face flushed with what they’d just done as well. “I was really happy.” He said. “When you told me I could finally touch you.”

“You wanted to do it that badly?”

“I just…” He trailed off, putting his head on James’s shoulder. “You always do it for me. I wanted you to make you feel the same way you make me feel.” 

“I’ve never used my mouth.”

“You don’t need to.” And that was an image that Ron probably was going to be seeing for a while, now. Maybe James would someday. 

“How did it taste?”

Ron wasn’t sure what to make of the question. “It was better this time.” He admitted. Probably because it had been James and not him, he thought.

“So you’d drink more if I offered it?”

“Can I?” Ron asked, excited. He lifted his head and looked at James hopefully. “Please, I want to do that to you again. I want to make you feel like that again.”

“Okay.” James said, smiling indulgently. “If you’re good and clean up after yourself properly, I’ll let you do it again sometimes. And maybe again tonight if we’re not too tired.”

“You know.” Ron reached down and put a hand on James’s leg, enjoying the contact. “You don’t have to act like you don’t like it. I don’t think it’s weird that you want to do stuff like that.” 

James was silent for a minute. “You don’t?”

“No. God, James. _I_ want to do stuff like that basically all the time. It’s kind of normal.”

“Oh.” James looked thoughtful. “I assumed you were just weird.”

“Of course you did.”

“I’ve never had friends my age.” James admitted. “So I wasn’t sure. But that’s good, because…I do like it, a lot. And I want to do it more.” 

“Well since what you want is what goes, I guess that means we’ll do it more.” Ron tried to get comfortable in the chair, found he couldn’t. He wondered if James would react well to being pulled into his lap. He wondered if James would let Ron sit in _his_ lap. “I want you to let me touch you too, please.”

“Okay.” James reached down and took Ron’s hand. “But only if you’re good. I’m not going to let you use this as an excuse to start misbehaving.” 

“I’m not going to misbehave.” It was getting easier for him to admit that he wanted James to think he was good. Ron took a second to consider the choices that had gotten him to a point in life where he wanted to behave so he could be allowed to suck another boy off, and decided that he had made all the right choices. 

“Good.” James sighed, leaned into him as if contemplating a nap.

“We can go in the bedroom if you want to lay down.”

“No.” James waved him off. “I need to finish this and I want you to do that, and then go wash my clothes after.”

“Okay.” Regretfully, Ron moved to get up, but James held him there. 

“Not yet.” He said. “Just sit here with me for a few minutes.” 

Ron looked at the faraway look in James’s eyes, the vague smile he still wore. He settled back in the chair and rested his head back on James’s shoulder. It felt nice. “Okay.”


	7. Being Completely At a Witch's Mercy Is a Bit of a Problem when the Witch Has None

“I’m back.”

“It’s about fucking time.”

“Language.”

“I feel like language is warranted in this situation.”

“Well, I don’t.” 

Ron rolled his eyes, mostly because they were about the only thing he could move. “You can imagine how much I care what you think at the moment.” 

“Is that so?” James asked from behind him. “Okay, I’m going to go back to the house, then. I’ll come get you tomorrow.”

“No!” Ron said, panic hitting him at the thought. “James, no. I’m sorry, you know I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I really do care what you think, please don’t leave me alone.”

Silence answered him for a long minute and Ron started to freak out, sure that James actually had turned around and gone back home. “Okay. Ron, I wouldn’t leave you alone like that. Not all the way out here where something might happen.”

“Yeah.” Ron sighed, trying to get his breathing under control. He could only expand his chest so much as it was, he didn’t need to suffocate because of something dumb.

“Ron.”

“What?”

“You know that, right? That I won’t leave you alone?”

He did know that, but that didn’t stop him from being afraid. “Yeah.” The whole time James had been away, having run back home to get something for the spell he needed to free Ron from this weird mud he’d gotten stuck in, he hadn’t been able to help but wonder if he was going to come back. 

“Okay. Let’s get you out of there now.” 

“Yes.” Ron said. He was getting sick of looking at the same trees as he had been for a few hours now. “You’re going to magic me out, right?”

“Yes.” James said, and Ron heard him shift, imagined James sitting at the edge of the mud. “At least now we know this is definitely plaster mud.”

“I feel like we could have learned that without me getting stuck up to my face in it.”

“You’re the one who walked into it.” James said gently, and Ron really wished he knew what was going on behind his head. “I told you to be careful.” 

“I was being careful!” He just hadn’t expected the ground to go from ground to mud pit in one step, that was all. 

“Not careful enough.” James said. “You’re lucky it’s only up to your neck. You could have died.”

“You would have magicked me out a lot faster than this if you really thought I was going to die.” Ron said. That he was sure of. 

“Yeah.” James admitted. 

“Wait.” Ron really wished he could turn his head. “So you _could_ have gotten me out of this right away? Why the hell did you go all the way back home, then?”

“If I’d done that, I would have passed out from exhaustion, and then you’d have had to lay there stuck in plaster mud on the ground while you waited for me to wake up. Did you know that its unusual chemical composition makes it harden on contact with a heat source like a body? When I pull you out you’re going to be covered in a perfect mould of your body.”

“I guess that’s why they call it plaster mud.” Ron muttered. It occurred to him that he hardly ever actually saw James do magic. James often did things that seemed magical, but Ron rarely got to see tangible results of that. Maybe he was secretly really bad at it or something. 

“That’s exactly why, good job.” James said. Was he measuring out a potion or something back there? There didn’t seem to be much in the way of saving going on. “I’m glad, by the way.”

“Why?” James seemed to enjoy Ron’s suffering to an extent, but Ron wasn’t sure what specifically about this called for being glad.

“You asked me why I went all the way back home. Not to my house or even the house, but _home._ It makes me happy that you’ve started thinking of it as home.”

“Yeah, well.” Ron was suddenly grateful that James couldn’t see his face. “I’ve lived there for a few months now, and you know, it’s…safe and warm and you’re there, so why not call it home. That’s what it is.”

“Yeah.” James said quietly. “I’m just glad, that’s all. Okay, I’m going to start.” 

“Okay.” Ron resisted the urge to close his eyes. James’s magic wasn’t going to hurt him. It had never done anything except protect him, as a matter of fact. “What’s going to happen?”

In answer, Ron felt himself start to lift out of the mud, slowly, as if pulled. It took a few minutes, but soon he was hovering above the surface of the mud pit and floating backwards, being turned so he could see James. Or maybe so James could see him, by the way Ron was being examined. “It is a pretty good cast of you.” He said. He had something in his fist, which seemed to be glowing a little. 

“It had a good model.” Ron grumbled. “Can we be impressed with the sculpting ability of the mud after I can move again?”

“Something in the mud breaks down flesh and makes it part of the mud. It’s a whole self-sustaining ecosystem with no living beings as a part of it. It’s pretty impressive, don’t you think?” Seeing the look on Ron’s face, James shook his head. “No, it takes a few months, so you’ll be fine, don’t worry.” 

“Okay” Ron sighed. “Still, can you…” He was trying to move his arms, legs or anything to crack the mud off of him, but it really may as well have been actual plaster for all that it was moving. 

“Not here.” James said. “I couldn’t find the hammer at home and I didn’t want to make you wait for any longer while I looked for it.”

“I…” Ron frowned. “I put the hammer on a hook with all the other tools. They’re on a rack behind the door.”

“Oh.” James blinked up at him. “Well, you didn’t tell me you were doing that.”

“You were right there when I did it. You’re just used to the house being a disaster, so you didn’t think to look where it was supposed to be.” 

“Hm.” James considered that. “Maybe. Anyway, let’s go home and I’ll break you out of here. I wonder if I can do it without breaking the cast too badly.”

“I don’t really care about that.”

“I do.” James said. “It’s nice to look at.” 

Ron rolled his eyes and James started off up the path, Ron hovering behind him in the mud. “You can’t move at all in that, can you?” James asked suddenly, about halfway home.

“No, not even a little bit.”

“Hm.” Was the only answer he got until a minute later. “I had a dream about you last night, you know. You had done something to make me angry, I don’t know what, but you were on your knees begging me to punish you for whatever it was.” 

Ron wasn’t sure he wanted to know where this was going, but even as he thought that blood was starting to flow downward.

“I didn’t really want to give you what you were asking for, but I was really mad at you so I decided you needed punishing after all and I took you across my knee and spanked you for a while.”

“Oh, god.” Ron realized something important as James was talking. “James…”

“And when I was done you told me you didn’t think you’d been punished enough, and you wouldn’t stop talking so I went and got a gag.”

“James!” Ron all but shouted. “Please tell me about this later when we get home. I’m stuck in here and I can’t move and I can’t…” He paused. “I can’t even get hard like this and it’s really…”

James smiled up at him. “Consider it your punishment for not paying attention to where you were walking.” 

“James…” Ron whinged, but James wasn’t deterred and kept entertaining him with the details of his highly inappropriate dreams. Ron hadn’t realized James dreamt about him at all, and some of the things he mentioned were things that Ron had never realized he wanted to do, but coming at this particular point in time it all just served to underscore his predicament.

Ron was just sort of whimpering pathetically by the time they finally crossed the little bridge that led to James’s property. “And then I tied your legs together and…oh hey, we’re home.” 

“Thank everything holy.” Ron panted, relieved. 

James set him down gently on the ground, leaning Ron against the house. He stuck whatever that glowing thing was in his pocket once Ron was on the ground and wiped his forehead. “I’m going to go get the hammer and chisel, hold on.”

“What’s that you had in your hand?” Ron asked. He’d never seen James use anything like that before, and it hadn’t escaped his notice that this was the first time he’d really seen James to really obvious magic. 

“Just some old junk my mother gave me.” James said dismissively, opening the door. “I’ll be back in a second. Oh, and the mud adheres to the body, so it’s going to sting a little when I pull it off.” 

“Okay.” James disappeared, and Ron tried to calm down, control himself. Maybe he’d try to get James to free up his pelvic area first. Even if he couldn’t touch himself, just being able to get hard would be a relief after that. 

Naturally, when James got to carving the plaster mud from his body, not only did he leave the bit over Ron’s junk until last, he didn’t take it off and all and, as punishment for yelling at him, made Ron wear it for the rest of the day.


	8. When it Snows, there is Little to do but Sit inside and Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's happening glacially, but the plot is moving forward.

“So…”

“So?”

“There’s something I’ve been kind of wanting to ask you.”

“Then you should ask me.” James said, not looking up from the little knots he was tying at intervals down that length of yarn. “You should know by now that you can ask me whatever you want.” 

“Yeah.” Ron was still a little unsure. “Well, I was wondering why you haven’t read that letter your aunt Julia brought you.” It was still sitting on the table on top of a stack of books, where James had set it weeks ago before apparently forgetting about it. 

James looked up from his yarn at Ron. “You can ask me whatever you want except that.” 

“Oh. Okay.” Ron looked away, worried he’d annoyed James. “Sorry.” 

James just grunted and Ron went back to sewing patches into the quilt that went on their bed. Sewing, as it turned out, was harder than it looked and Ron kept poking himself with the needle. 

They worked quietly for a few more minutes, sitting on the floor of the house. Ron glanced up at the snow that was falling outside and smiled. He didn’t feel the cold at all. It was nice and warm in the house thanks to the fire and the charm James had given him was working perfectly. He touched it idly. Was it weird that he wanted to go out and be in the snow a little? That seemed like a little kid thing to do, but he wanted to go for a walk in the snow with James. 

“Fine.” James sighed all of the sudden, setting his yarn aside and standing. 

“What?” Ron looked up at him, confused. “We don’t have to, I was just daydreaming.”

James fixed a look on him. “What are you talking about?”

“You weren’t reading my mind just then?”

“Why do I have to keep telling you that I can’t read your mind? Do you want me to read your mind?” 

“No.” Ron said, his voice very small. If James read his mind he would see an awful lot of things that were best kept private. Most of which involved him. 

“Is it because you’re embarrassed that I’ll learn all of your sexual thoughts about me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” James turned to the table, grabbed the letter. “Do you remember what you said when we met?”

“Um…” Ron cast his mind back to that day, back at the end of summer. “I said a lot of things.”

“Yes, you talk a lot. You said that I was the worst witch and you wanted to see my credentials.” 

“I was joking, James. I didn’t really mean that.” Ron said hastily. “I was just frustrated and…”

“I know.” James waved a hand to silence him, tossing the letter down in his lap. “Take a look.”

Ron set the needle and thread aside and picked up the letter carefully, looking it over from both sides. He looked up at James before breaking the seal and only did so at his nod. The letter was short, only a few sentences. “What the hell?”

“Language.”

“There’s a Grand Coven of Witches?”

“Yes.” James said patiently. 

“And you’re part of it?” This was…not what Ron was expecting. This was a summons to come to a meeting. He had only ever seen James do real magic once. 

“My family has traditionally held a seat. I represent my family.” 

“Why?” Ron asked, looking from the letter to James. “Aren’t you the youngest member of your family?”

“Yes.” James thought about it for a second. “Technically. I inherited the seat from my mother. Ron.” 

“What?”

“Please don’t ask me what happened to my mother, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I just mean that…if you ask me…I don’t like lying to you.” James stopped, took a breath. He looked uncertain, not something Ron thought he’d ever seen on him before. “If you ask me I’ll tell you but I really don’t like to talk about it, okay?” 

“James.” Ron said. “Okay. I promise not to ask you about it.” James looked upset, and that wasn’t something he was used to seeing. It made Ron upset by association. “You don’t have to say anything else.” 

“Thank you, Ron.” James sat back down, took the letter and frowned at it. 

“Why don’t you want to go to the meeting? Isn’t it kind of important?”

James shook his head, reaching up to set the letter on the table. “The Grand Coven never wants to talk about anything that matters to me. And it’s far away so I don’t want to travel all the way there, especially in the winter.” 

“They’re summoning you.” Ron said. “It even says that. You’ve been summoned.”

“If they want to talk to me that badly they can come here.”

“You would hate it if people came here.”

“Yes.” 

“Can’t you just…quit?” Ron asked, thinking it was probably a stupid question, especially if James’s family had always had a seat. “Or let someone else in your family do it? You’ve got Julia and I think you’ve mentioned cousins and your grandmother. How come I haven’t met the rest of your family?”

“Because they don’t live that close to my house.”

“Visit your family more often.”

James looked at him. “I can’t let one of them do it. The Coven wouldn’t acknowledge them.”

“Why?” 

James was silent for a minute and just sat there thinking. Ron waited, wondering if he was going to answer or not. Finally he stood up again, went over to a drawer and came back with something in his hand. He tossed it at Ron. “A rock?”

“Yes.” It was a flat, oblong rock that was a light sort of blue colour that Ron thought looked natural and not like paint or anything. 

“A magical rock?”

“It’s called a leystone.” James told him. “It pulls power directly from the energy currents of the world for use in magic.” 

That sounded impressive. And dangerous. Ron stopped passing it from hand to hand. “Why do you have this?”

“My family’s always had it. We’re supposed to protect it. There are only five of them in the world and even you must realize that they’re very powerful.” 

“Yeah.” Ron said, turning it over in his hands. It really felt just like an ordinary rock. “So you’re on the Coven because you have this?”

“Yes. It’s bound to my soul—don’t ask why—and so I’m the only one who can use it. And I’m the only witch who has one.”

Ron frowned. “Who has the other ones?”

“You know there are five kinds of magic?” James asked, taking the leystone and putting it back in the drawer.

Ron took a moment to consider that James had a powerful magical object of which there were only five in the world and he kept in a drawer with some tubers and a deer kidney. “Yes. Um. Witches, wizards, mages…” He trailed off. It would come to him in a second.

“Sorcerers and necromancers.” James finished. 

“So there’s one for each?”

James nodded. “Each is tuned to a different type of magic practitioner. The mages keep theirs in their academy in a vault. The wizards trade it around every few years so that nobody knows where it is and it can’t be stolen. Ours is hidden here in the forest.” James paused. “The necromancy stone went missing about a hundred years ago and nobody can find it. The sorcerer who was guarding that stone stole it a twenty or so years ago and nobody can find him either.” 

“So there are five and two are missing?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it kind of important that the Coven people be in contact with you, then?” 

James shrugged. “They don’t do anything, they’re just rocks. There isn’t some magical prophecy about uniting all five of them to save the world or anything like that.”

“It would be cool if there was, though.”

“Sometimes I forget how easy you are to entertain.” 

Ron smiled, leaned in and gave James a spontaneous hug. “Thanks.”

“For what?” James just sort of sat there for a second before raising his arms to hug Ron back. 

“For trusting me enough to tell me all that. I don’t think it was easy.”

In might have been Ron’s imagination but he thought James held him a little tighter for a second. “Trusting you is the easiest thing in the world.” He said quietly, before pulling away. 

“You should still go to the meeting.”

“No.”

Ron sighed. “Okay.” He went back to sewing and almost immediately poked himself with the needle. 

“What you were you thinking about earlier?”

“When?” Ron shook out his finger, willing it to stop hurting. 

“When you were daydreaming and you thought I was reading your mind.” Ron looked up to see James sitting there watching him. “What were you daydreaming about?”

“Nothing.” Ron said, stabbing the needle into the quilt completely at random and poking his thigh in the process. “It was something stupid.” 

“Ron.” James said, in that tone of voice that made Ron lift his head. “You’re not allowed to call yourself stupid.”

“You do it all the time!”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to hear you talk about yourself that way. Do you understand?”

Ron blinked. “Um, okay.” That…he wished he could explain at least to himself why that made him so happy. 

James held his gaze for a minute longer before nodding. “Okay. What were you thinking about?”

“Just…” Ron glanced at the window again. “I was just thinking that I’d like to go for a walk in the snow. With you.” He was pretending his face was red with heat from the fire and not embarrassment. 

“Oh, okay.” James looked up at the window, and then at Ron, and then down at all the work they were doing. And he looked at Ron again and smiled. “Go and get my boots and coat.”


	9. Danger is a Decent Motivator to Shock Those Stuck in a Cycle of Self-Denial

“You know…”

“Shut up!”

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“I can hear it in your tone of voice.” Ron called down.

“I was just going to say that you get trapped in a lot of things.” James commented from the ground, looking up at Ron, who was hanging by one hand from about fifty feet up a tree. 

“How was I supposed to know the tree was going to act like a slingshot when I grabbed it?” Ron demanded, feeling like James might have mentioned that to him before he’d grabbed onto the low-hanging branch. 

“It’s called a slingshot tree for a reason.”

“You told me it was called a sweetsyrup tree!”

“It is.” James peered up at him as if another angle might make Ron less far away. “It’s got more than one name. When animals come to eat its sap, it snares them yanks them up like that to protect and feed itself. The animals get stuck up there and decompose. When they fall they provide nutrients to the tree and while they’re up there the insects that live in the tree eat them as well.”

“Are you telling me there are bugs up here?” Ron asked, looking around for any and grabbing onto the branch with his free hand to work his other one out from the snare it had gotten caught in. 

“Not in the winter, no. Make sure to collect the ice cotton while you’re up there.” Ron turned and glared at the little blue puffs, which grew on thin vines that were wrapped all around the tree. Apparently ice cotton was a parasitic plant that would eventually strangle whatever plant it was growing around, and in Ron’s opinion it couldn’t happen nearly fast enough in this case. 

“What am I supposed to collect it in?”

“Just knock it off the tree; I’ll put it in the basket.” 

Ron rolled his eyes and he finally managed to get his hand free, clinging suddenly to the nearly vertical branch as he realized how thin it was and how high up he was. 

“I saw that. Don’t roll your eyes at me.”

“You did not see that!” Ron called down. “There’s no way you can see this high up!”

“Okay.” James called back. “But I didn’t need to see it because you just told me about it.”

“Are you going to help me get down or not?”

“I’d think after all this time you’d know how to ask for something politely.” James sighed, went about collecting some stray pieces of ice cotton that were on the ground. 

Ron bit back several curses and slipped a few inches. James’s charm was protecting him from cold, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t ice on the tree. “James?” He asked, pitching his voice to sound more timid. “I’m kind of stuck up here in the tree and I need your help. Could you please, please help me down? Please?”

James looked up at him, tilting his head. “That was better, though the voice was a bit much.”

“Can you do something now?”

“No.” James shook his head. “What do you think I can do, Ron? Just climb down.” 

“Do you even know how to do magic?” Ron shouted, but he just sighed and started sliding himself down, looking for a foothold and trying not to think about all the skin he was scraping off here. Every few feet he paused to grab a vine of ice cotton and shake the balls loose. “I swear, sometimes I think you’re just pretending to be a witch.” 

“Sometimes the rest of us think that too.” Ron started, looking around. From the other side of the tree two people, a young man and woman, were approaching. Both were wearing black and the man had a wide-brimmed hat, the woman holding a walking stick. Ron frowned at them. 

James sighed and glared up at Ron. “You know, you went all the way up there, you could have at least acted as lookout. They might have been here to kill me.”

“Maybe you could stop them if you actually knew how to do magic.” Ron snapped.

The flat stare he got in reply told him pretty plainly that he could expect to be assigned some menial task involving scorpion pincers or something before he was allowed to eat supper tonight. Ron wisely didn’t say anything else and James looked away once sure Ron was appropriately cowed. 

“Morning, James.” The young woman said, coming around the tree. She glanced up at Ron interestedly before moving her attention back to James. 

“Hello Tana, Jay.” James said to both of them. It was pretty clear he’d used both of their names for Ron’s benefit. “I was wondering if I’d see you here.”

“Mother told us you had a new pet.” Jay said, looking up at Ron. He didn’t look as much like James as his sister did, but Ron supposed if they were only cousins he must take after his father. “She didn’t mention that he was cute.”

“Don’t touch.” James said warningly. Ron wondered if it might be best for him to just stay up in the tree until they were gone. “Mine.” Ron caught himself smiling at that and stopped, shimmying down a bit further until his foot met something solid. He sighed a little. At least he wasn’t relying on just his hands anymore, and maybe now he could climb down properly and not get bark-burn all down his front. 

“I didn’t know you used ice cotton.” Tana said to James, leaning on her stick. 

“Sometimes.” He said. “There are a few curses, hexes, that sort of thing. They’re useful in some shields and spells for hiding as well.” 

“Or you could make things out of them, which is what they’re for.” Jay said, taking what looked like a wand out of his coat and tapping the tree with it. All of the ice cotton started to fall in a blue shower that covered the ground. Ron just sort of hung there, annoyed because that meant there was no reason for any of this to have happened to him at all. 

“You’re just jealous because when you try to cast hexes you light your hair on fire.” James said, crouching to gather some into his basket. 

“True enough.” Jay looked up at Ron again. “Are you coming down from there, or are trees your natural habitat?”

“He’s native to my garden, actually.” James said, not looking up from the ice cotton. 

“But he’s migrated into your bed?” Tana asked. “He’s an adaptable thing.”

“I can hear you!”

“We know.” 

Ron rolled his eyes. “I saw that too.” 

“I’m sure you did.” Ron muttered, searching around for another place to put his foot as he moved down and not finding one. He frowned and rested his foot back on the same foothold. 

There was a very sudden crack and Ron didn’t have time to do more than think about cursing before he was falling. “Ron!” He heard, but there wasn’t much chance that James was going to be able to catch him and Ron just closed his eyes, thinking that he should have been more careful. He wasn’t scared, and he would realize later that it was because he knew James was there. 

Ron’s fall stopped abruptly but he didn’t hit the ground. “What the fuck?” He asked, queasy. He fell the last foot and landed in a pile of snow and cotton, still frozen in shock but not hurt. 

“Ron.” James was suddenly beside him, eyes wide and face pale. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you’d fall, I really didn’t. I should have tried to get you down. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. James.” Ron said up, taking James’s hand in his own. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m fine, really.”

James shook his head, trembling a bit. There were tears in his eyes. “It was my fault. I need to take better care of you. I should have told you what the tree would do before you touched it. I should have helped you down. I should have…”

“Stop.” Ron said, putting a hand on James’s cheek and smiling unevenly. “I’m okay. You caught me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” James said, full-on shaking now. “But…”

“No but. You caught me. You wouldn’t have let me get hurt.” 

“You don’t know that.” James whispered, and Ron heard footsteps as his cousins came up to them. 

“Don’t mind him.” Tana said gently. “He’s got a bit of a complex about rescuing people.”

When Ron looked up at her for clarification, James’s expression hardened. “Okay.” He said, voice still shaky. He stood and helped Ron do the same. “Let’s gather up the cotton and go home.”

“I can do it.” Ron said, trotting over to retrieve the basket, easily scooping it full of the light blue cotton not that it was all over the ground. Hopefully Jay planned to take the rest, otherwise it was going to blow all over the forest and be very annoying. 

When he stood, James was beside him and looped their arms together. “Let’s go. I’ll see you guys later.” He said over his shoulder. 

“Nice meeting the two of you.” Ron said as James practically pulled him away from the little hill the slingshot tree was on. 

“Maybe we’ll come over for supper sometime soon!” Jay called after them, and only Ron saw the way James frowned at that. 

“Why don’t you like your cousins?” Ron asked when they were farther away.

“I do.” James said he didn’t lie to Ron, but that sounded like one. “We just don’t have the same interests, that’s all. Tana does metallurgy and Jay works with weaving, so we don’t have much to talk about.” 

“Okay.” Ron decided not to press since James was already pretty upset. “You’re shivering. When we get home I’ll make you some hot chocolate.” 

“No.” James said immediately. “I’ll make it for you.”

“It’s okay, you’re the one who’s shivering.” 

“No. I want…” James hesitated. “I want you to sit in the bed and just…” He shook his head again. “I want you to let me take care of you for a while.”

Ron wasn’t quite sure what to say about that, but the idea warmed him a lot more than any hot chocolate. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Okay.”


	10. Magic is Complicated and Weird, but Worth it if you Can Save the World from your Kitchen

“Ron…”

“Mm?”

“Ah.” James didn’t give him any more warning than that before filling up Ron’s mouth, pulling Ron’s hair a little as he came. Ron dutifully swallowed all of it and waited until James had relaxed on the chair, panting, before lifting his head, careful not to bang it on the table, and looking up at him properly. “Good boy.” James breathed.

Smiling, Ron crawled out from under the table and took the chair beside James. “Feel better now?”

“Yes.” Still flushed, James looked down at the map on the table intently. “Thank you, that was very distracting. You’re very distracting. It’s very disruptive to my work, you know.” 

“Sorry.” Ron leaned over, put his head on James’s shoulder. “I’m not going to stop, though.”

“I know.” James sighed, eyes tracking the marble that was rolling around the map in a wide circle. 

“Why isn’t it working?”

“I don’t know.”

“What is it supposed to be doing?” It wasn’t hard to tell it wasn’t working by the way James was clearly annoyed at the marble, but that didn’t mean Ron would recognize if it did start doing whatever it was meant to. 

Well, he probably would, because James would be happy, he supposed. 

“It’s supposed to have stopped by now.”

“Is this another divination spell?”

James looked at Ron for a moment. “Yes. I’m trying to find out what’s going on with winter.”

“What’s going on with winter?” Ron asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“No, I mean, what is it that’s wrong? It seems like a normal winter to me.” Lots of snow and cold and dead plants. Ron wasn’t sure what was wrong with it. 

“That’s because you’re not a witch.” James told him. “There’s something the matter with the power in the sky. I think someone is trying to make it winter permanently.”

“That sounds bad.”

“Yes. That’s why I’m trying to find where they are.” James frowned down at the marble. “Why isn’t it working? Go and…no, that won’t work.” James fell quiet, thinking hard. Ron knew better than to disturb him, so he got up and started making tea. He would have to make supper shortly too—maybe some of the fish that they’d salted in the autumn. 

“Oh, I know.” James said, just when Ron was adding the leaves. “Go get me an icicle off the house.” 

“Okay.” Ron poured a cup and set it down beside James, heading outside. He opened the door as narrowly as he could so a cold wind wouldn’t blow into the house and slipped out into the snow, barely noticing it with the charm James had given him around his neck. Several icicles were hanging from the house, and Ron thought he should probably hit them down when it stopped snowing, before they damaged the eaves or fell on one of them. 

He spent more time than he might like to admit looking for an icicle that looked right, even though he had no idea what James was really going to use it for. He finally settled on one that wasn’t too long, just a bit more than the length of his hand, and crooked in a way that he thought was funny. He brought it inside quickly, worried it would melt in his hands.

“You took a very long time.” James said when Ron came back inside. He was sipping his tea. “I was worried you’d gotten stuck in something again.”

“I’m fine, I was just…having a hard time deciding, is all.” Ron muttered, a little embarrassed.

James gestured for him to hand over the icicle and inspected it, nodding. “This is perfect. Thank you, Ron.”

Ron couldn’t help but smile a little. “I didn’t know icicles were magical.”

“They’re not, but I am.” James said, picking up the marble and running it along the length of the icicle. This morning he’d soaked it in some mixture of various herbs and some ice cotton. “Do you know what sympathetic magic is?”

“No.” Ron thought he’d heard of it, but what that really meant was that he’d heard James say it before. 

“It’s when you use something similar in the spell you’re casting to the effect you want. You can use different types of seeds in fertility potions, or pour water on something in a ritual to make rain.” James’s eyes went to Ron’s neck. “Cook a charm to ward off cold in fire.” 

“Or use some ice to find a person who wants to make it winter forever?”

“Yes.” James smiled. “Very good, that’s right.” He set the marble back on the table and rolled it gently. It started circling the map again, leaving a little wet trail behind it at first. Ron watched it intently, knowing he should get up and make supper, but wanting to see how this worked out. After a minute the circle the marble was making narrowed, and it eventually rolled to a stop near the top of the map, somewhere in the northern arm of the Amaran Mountains, just before they started to flatten out near the northern coast. “There you are.” James whispered.

Ron grinned. “You found him?”

“Yes. Okay.” James looked around the table, grabbed a sheet of paper and a quill. 

“Now what?”

“Now I’m going to write a letter. I’ll tell someone where he is so that they can go do something about it.”

“Oh.” Ron was a little surprised. “Okay. You’re not going to do something about it?”

“No.” James dipped the quill in the ink and started writing in scratch that was only half-legible at best. 

“Why not?” The idea that was because James _couldn’t_ crossed Ron’s mind, but he discarded that. Of course he could. 

“Because I don’t want to. I will if I really have to, but it would draw too much attention and I don’t like that. Besides, someone will have to kill this person and I can’t do that from here.” 

Ron nodded, thinking that both of those things made sense. “Okay. I’m going to cook fish for supper.”

“Make that sauce that you made before. I liked that.” Ron nodded again and stood, moving over to the cupboards and looking around for what he needed. 

“Do you always do stuff like this?” 

“Sometimes, when I need to.” 

“That’s kind of…cool.” Ron didn’t think James had solved any world crises in the time he’d been here, but what did he know? “Can you…I mean, would you be willing to…maybe teach me a little bit about magic?”

James looked up at him, blinked. “Why?”

“It’s just…I don’t really understand what you do. Or know anything about it. I know I can’t do magic, but I feel like I could help you better if I knew how it worked, at least.” Ron started chopping up ginger, keeping his eyes down on the counter as he talked. “I don’t want to be in your way all the time. I’d like to help if I can.” 

James was silent for a minute as he watched Ron. “Okay. Thank you, Ron. Will you get out that copper plate that you hate?”

“I don’t _hate_ it.” Ron said automatically, putting the knife down and pulling a chair over to a cupboard to reach the top shelf. “It’s just so big and no matter where I put it it’s always in the way.” He got it off the shelf it was sitting on diagonally, carefully pushing back all of the things that were under and above it, and stepped down from the chair. The plate had huge ornate handles and a wide rim that was carved like lace. It was way too shiny. 

“It’s a focus.” James told him. “There’s a spell on it that lets you talk to people who are far away. Most people use mirrors, but we used the plate instead. Put it on the table here.” 

Looking at the plate carefully, Ron set it beside the map. It didn’t seem magical to him. “You’re going to talk to someone?”

“I’m going to send them my letter. That way I don’t have to talk to her.” 

“You’re sending it to someone from the Grand Coven, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” James sounded unhappy. “Get the pixie wings and some wraithberries and an oak root and put them all in the frying pan.” Ron did, and James had him put them all in the stove until they’d burned to ashes. “Pixie wings are always used in communication spells. Wraithberries have magical properties that allow them to remember words. The oak root is for the paper.” 

“So it doesn’t just burn up?”

“It will burn up, but it’s so to keep the memory of the paper intact so the words don’t fall out of order in transmission.” When it was all burnt up, James folded up the letter and carefully put it in the pan. “It’s going to be very bright.” He warned, and sure enough, the paper burned up in a blaze of blue fire that had Ron looking away.

“Okay, now pour all the ashes onto the focus, quickly.” Ron did, though the metal handle of the pan was starting to burn his hands even through the oven mitts. The focus flashed white for a second and James put his hand right into the pile, smeared it around the plate and said “Cassiopeia Titlehorn.” Nothing else happened, but James took his hand out of the ashes and wiped it on his shirt. He still hadn’t put his pants back on from earlier. 

“Did it work?” 

“Yes. Good job.” James looked around and sighed. “Will you wash the plate and put it away quickly? I don’t want her to try and contact me in return.”

“You’re worried you’re going to be summoned again, aren’t you?” Ron asked, putting the pan down on top of the stove and taking the plate. He’d have to toss the ashes outside, he supposed. “It’s okay to just throw these away?”

“Yes, they’re just ashes. And yes. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to use the plate to talk to people like they’re right there. You don’t even actually need magic to do that.”

“Okay. That sounds interesting.”

“I’ll start the fish while you’re outside.”

“Go easy on the pepper.” Ron headed for the door. 

James frowned. “Fine. Ron?” 

“What?”

“You’re not in my way. I like having you here.” 

“I, um…” Ron laughed nervously, stupidly happy to hear that even though he probably had already known. “I like you having me here too, James.” 

“Go wash the plate.”

“Easy on the pepper.” 

“We’ll see.” Ron turned away and headed outside, smiling to himself all the time. 

(James insisted that he hardly used any, but it was still way too much pepper).


	11. Trying New Things Always has the Potential to Yield Interesting Results

“How many times am I going to have to tell you to pay attention?” 

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are, but only because you’re itchy.”

“No, really I’m sorry, James. I didn’t realize what kind of plant it was.”

“I did.”

“You’re from here!” Ron protested. “You should have mentioned to me that it was…whatever it was.” 

“Fire shoots.” James sighed. “I didn’t…actually recognize it until you’d already walked through it. I’m sorry, Ron.”

“It’s not your fault.” Ron said, worried. He hadn’t meant to make James feel bad. “It’s not a big deal; it’s just a rash. I mean, it’ll clear up in a day or two, right?”

“Yes, I should expect so.” James looked at Ron’s legs one last time before getting up to sit on the chair beside him. “Are you going to be able to not scratch it?”

“I…” Ron fidgeted in his chair. It was really, _really_ itchy, and it started at his knees and went up to his inner thighs, encroaching on some very sensitive territory, as a matter of fact. “Probably not.” He admitted.

“Okay.” James looked around the hut, biting his lip. “There’s a paste that I can make that will clear it up faster and stop it itching.”

“But?” Ron knew James well enough to know when there was a caveat. 

“It’s of my own invention and I haven’t perfected the recipe yet.” James said, and Ron heard a little bit of frustration in his voice. “I used it on myself last time I got a fire shoot rash. It causes weakness—I couldn’t move my hands for a while.”

“Ah.” Ron understood. James was going to have to put it on his legs. “I won’t be able to walk?”

“Or stand up, probably. Until at least the morning. I’ll try to dilute the recipe that I used before, but I don’t know how much I can without compromising the usefulness of the mixture.” 

“Okay.” Ron smiled. “I’m not worried. I trust you—you’ve never hurt me before.”

James looked away. “It will take me a little while to make. Are you okay to help?”

“Of course. Maybe the work will help me forget about how itchy I am.” 

It didn’t really, but at least finding the ingredients in the mess of the cupboards (the one thing in the house that Ron had thus far been too afraid of messing up to rearrange), cutting them, mixing them, boiling water and holding the bowl for James while he mixed it with one hand and added crushed elm leaves with the other gave Ron’s hands something to do for a while so he couldn’t scratch himself. He kept telling himself that scratching would be bad, it would make the rash worse, not better. It was funny how he knew that but didn’t really care. 

“Okay.” James declared, frowning at the bowl of light pink cream they had finished with. “It was red before, so maybe that’s good.” 

“We could test it.” James nodded, took a dab of the cream on the end of the mixing spoon and smeared it against Ron’s knee. The skin under the cream tingled and went numb almost right away. “Well, I can’t feel it anymore.” Ron reported.

“Okay. That means it’s working.” James sighed. “Go lay on the bed. I think the easiest way to apply it is if you’re laying down.”

“Find a washcloth to smear it on with or something.” Ron said as James stood to follow him into the back. James blinked. “That way you won’t get it on your hands.” 

James just stood there for a second. “That’s a good idea. Okay. I’ll fine one and come in a minute, then. Wait for me.” 

“Sure.” Ron headed back into the bedroom, climbed gingerly onto the bed that was really more than wide enough for the two of them, and lay down on his back, trying not to think about scratching. If he wasn’t going to be able to walk until the morning, that meant James was going to have to cook supper, which meant Ron was going to have to pretend not to notice that it was covered in way too many spices. Sometimes Ron wondered if James had problems tasting things. 

“Okay.” James said as he entered the room a minute later. He had a ragged white washcloth in hand and the bowl of pink paste in the other. He looked at Ron’s rash and the bed. “You should lay down with your legs up in the air, I think, so you don’t smear the cream off on the blankets.” 

“Okay.” Ron did that and James got onto the bed as well, planting himself sort of in between Ron’s legs. 

“Grab your ankles.” James ordered. “Once I start putting on the cream, you’ll lose muscle strength and probably won’t be able to hold that position without help from your upper body.”

“Right.” Ron’s voice was a little higher than usual as he did what James said, not quite able to help himself from pulling his legs farther apart in the process. James frowned down at Ron and his growing erection and Ron gulped.

“You’ve thought about this before, haven’t you?” He asked, taking the cloth and dabbing it into the cream, applying it to Ron’s left leg. 

“Well, not _this._ ” Ron muttered. “I mean the rash and the paralysing cream, no. But…maybe a little bit.” 

“Hmm.” James smeared on some more cream. “Okay. If you keep still, I’ll give you a reward after. As an apology for not telling you about the fire shoots.”

Ron whimpered a little bit and any hardness he might have been missing arose in full force. “You don’t need to apologise, James. It wasn’t your fault.” 

“It was, and I should have warned you. Stop fidgeting.” 

“You have to stop blaming yourself every time something happens to me, James.” Ron said. He’d been doing it ever since Ron had gotten stuck in that tree and it was starting to worry him. “It’s not your fault.”

James was silent for a while as he put more of the cream on. The itch was steadily disappearing, but Ron’s leg was also going numb. “Just let me take care of you, Ron. Please.”

Ron wanted to say that James didn’t need to take care of him, that was the point he was trying to make, but the way James had lowered his eyes just a little made him pause. Ron thought he looked sad. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry.” 

James smiled and so Ron smiled too. Ron let him put the cream on in silence for a while, until most of both of his legs was covered. James scooted forward and started rubbing the cream up Ron’s inner thighs, coming frustratingly close to touching something interesting but never quite doing it. “Do you feel itchy anywhere else?” James asked after another minute.

“Just the usual places.” Ron smiled, flexed a little and made his erection bounce against his stomach. 

“I wonder what would happen if I put the cream there.”

“Let’s not find out.” Ron said immediately.

“Yes, we’d better not. Hm.” James was looking down in between Ron’s legs. “Stay here.”

“You say that like I can move!” Ron called, as James got off the bed and wandered out of the back room. A minute later he came back with a little bottle in his hand. “What’s that?”

“I told you I’d give you a reward if you were good.”

“A bottle?”

“Oil. I want to try something.” That was all James said as he uncorked the bottle. He poured it in between Ron’s legs, on his balls and underneath. Ron squirmed a little at the feeling. 

“Are you going to…”

“Yes.” James trailed his fingers down, following the oil, and resting them right in Ron’s hole. “I want to know what it feels like. You said you’ve thought about this before, so I thought it might be okay.” 

“It’s okay.” Ron said quickly, trying to pretend not to be nervous. “I just…wanted to be sure.”

James nodded and, putting his free hand on Ron’s belly, which was oddly reassuring, slid a finger inside, slowly. Ron made a small noise, trying not to squirm at the unfamiliar feeling. It felt like an intrusion, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Keep hold of your ankles.” James said quietly, and Ron nodded, tightening his grip. James pushed his finger the rest of the way in and prodded around a bit, wriggling it inside of Ron. The look on his face was one of fascination. “Are you okay?”

Ron thought about it for a second and nodded again. “Yeah. It’s just a bit weird.” 

“Tell me if you want me to stop.” James wriggled some more, and after a second Ron felt another finger poking its way in, joining the first. 

“Ng.”

“Ron?”

“It stings a little bit.” Not a lot, it wasn’t anything Ron couldn’t handle, but it wasn’t nothing either. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Just for a minute. Just don’t move for a minute, okay?”

“Okay, tell me when you’re okay.” 

Ron nodded, took deep breaths and tried to relax as much as he could. James kept perfectly still, except he was rubbing Ron’s belly gently. “Okay.” He said after a minute. “Keep going now.”

James nodded and the second finger slid the rest of the way in, joining the first in poking around inside as if looking for something. “I think just two should be enough for today.” He muttered, apparently to himself. 

A shock ran through Ron all of the sudden and he thought it was James doing magic, until it happened again and he realized James was touching something inside of him. “James…”

“Keep holding your ankles.” James ordered. “That was your prostate gland. I’m going to keep touching it now.”

And he did, poking it and rubbing it and reducing Ron to a whimpering mess. He wanted nothing more than to touch himself, and he was starting to feel the strain of holding himself up in his chest, but he kept his hands on his ankles like he’d been told. 

“Okay, you can finish now.” And Ron did, splattering all over his belly and chest. James moved his free hand aside just in time to avoid getting hit. “Good boy.” 

“James, that was…” Ron panted, not quite able to articulate anything. “That was the best.”

“Hm.” James pulled his fingers out of Ron slowly, ignoring the whinge he got in return, and frowned at them before wiping them on the bedsheets. “I expect you to be more diligent in your hygiene from now on.” 

“The river’s frozen.” Ron said vaguely, his arms starting to burn a little from the exertion of holding his legs up. James hadn’t told him he could let go yet. “It’s too hard.” Having a bath in the winter meant dragging the big tub over to the stand, filling it with water, snow and ice, lighting a fire, raising the water temperature…it was too much work to do every day. Even James only had a bath every three or four days out of pity for how much work it was for Ron. 

“That’s true.” James thought about that for a second. “I have an idea. Stay here.”

“Why do you keep saying that like I can go anywhere?” Ron asked, as James got up and wandered back out to the house. He kind of wanted James to just lay here on the bed with him for a while and maybe go to sleep, but obviously James had other ideas. 

James was gone for the longest time. Ron heard him rummaging around in the main room and he thought he heard the door open and then shut a minute later, followed by more rummaging. “Close your eyes.” James called in.

“Okay.” Ron did as he was told, and he listened carefully to the sound of James coming back into the room, unable to stop twitching in anticipation of whatever James was going to do. Not being able to see added an unusual element that Ron hadn’t been expecting. He’d never realized how much he relied on sight until he was forced to track James with his ears and fight back his own brain from imaging the most outlandish, vaguely terrifying things that it…

_Cold._

“Holy God, James!” Ron jumped, just barely maintaining his hold on his ankles as he felt a dull cold where James’s fingers had been earlier. The charm protected him from the cold, but maybe not so well when there was ice pressing up against and _into_ his body. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a way to clean yourself.”

“With an icicle?” Ron couldn’t help but raise his voice.

“Don’t shout, and yes. It’s water, so you can use it to clean yourself.”

“That’s…that’s really…” Ron wasn’t sure what it was, but James pushed the icicle inside of him, a little further than James’s fingers had been, with relative ease. 

“You’re welcome.” James said, rather more smugly than Ron thought was necessary, and Ron felt the bed shift as James moved out from between his legs and got up beside him on the blankets. “You’re hard again. Or still, maybe.” 

“Yeah, well. I think it was because you had my close my eyes.” There was no point in not being truthful about these things, he thought. 

“I’ll remember that, then.” James said quietly, making Ron shiver for an altogether different reason. “Here, I’ll help.”

James hardly ever touched Ron. “You don’t have to…oh, fuck.” It wasn’t James’s hand that had wrapped around his erection all of the sudden, and Ron gulped and lost track of what was happening. 

James’s mouth was warm, and the icicle was cold, and they were touching him at the same time and when the icicle had mostly melted inside of him James reached down and pushed the rest of it in to fill the space, not once pausing in sucking on Ron. His teeth kept getting in the way and scraping the underside of the shaft, but Ron hardly noticed and it seemed like only a minute later he was ready to shoot again. “James, James.” Ron cried, trying to warn him before…

James pulled off of Ron just in time for Ron to shoot all over himself again, and beside Ron, James made a little strained noise himself that made Ron think he must have been touching himself while all of that had been going on. 

When Ron recovered from it, the first thing he noticed was the sound of James breathing beside him. “Are you okay?” Ron asked.

“Yes, I am.” James sounded far away, breathy. “Are you?”

“Yeah.” The icicle had melted, Ron noted. 

“You can open your eyes now.” Ron did, and James smiled down at him before sitting up to take Ron’s ankles. His pants were undone and there was a big wet spot on the front. “Let go.” 

James eased Ron’s now-dry legs into the now-damp sheets before coming to lay beside him. “You did very well, Ron. Good boy.” 

Ron felt his chest swell with pride at that. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do all of that.” 

“I wanted to. I want to be close to you like this, Ron.” James made it sound like he was admitting a huge secret.

“Me too.” He went to go scoop up the mess on his belly to clean up.

“Okay.” James snuggled a little closer, taking Ron’s hand in his so he couldn’t clean up. “Good. Let’s have a nap and then I’ll make you supper.” 

“Okay.” On cue, Ron yawned, and he reached over and pulled a loose blanket over them. James fell asleep nearly right away. 

Ron followed him to sleep almost immediately, but not before a thought arose unbidden in his subconscious. 

_I love you._


	12. Some Things Just Take Time to Work up To Saying out Loud

“I’m going to give you a coat.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I don’t need a coat.”

“Yes, you do.” James tapped his fork against the side of his plate. His eggs were getting cold and Ron gave them a significant look so James would keep eating. “We’re almost out of firewood, so I need you to cut more.”

“I know that.” Ron was the one who had to go out and get the firewood for the stove every day. There was almost none left. 

“You’re going to wear a coat and some gloves while you do it so you don’t get covered in splinters.” 

“I cut firewood for you in the autumn without a coat and gloves and I was fine.” 

James’s eyes flashed at Ron for a second. “You used to be the one who wanted clothes.”

Ron coloured, looked down at his own empty plate. “Whatever. I’ve gotten used to not having them, I guess.” 

“I’m glad. I like you better without them.”

“You’ve never seen me in them!”

“And I’d love to keep it that way. But you’re going to wear a coat and some gloves today so you don’t get hurt chopping the firewood.” The way James said that made it pretty clear that this wasn’t a discussion. 

“Fine.” Ron sighed. Hard physical labour wasn’t the worst thing ever, but that didn’t mean he was excited about it. Besides, James always complained that he smelled bad after. “Why don’t we have enough firewood? It should have lasted us the winter.”

“It did. It’s been spring for a week or so.” 

Ron glanced out the window, where snow was piled so high he could barely see past the glass. It was snowing again today, too. “I thought you, you know, fixed the problem with the endless winter thing.”

“I did. I sent Cassiopeia the information about where the person doing it is hiding.”

“She hasn’t done much with that information.”

“No, it doesn’t look like it.” James scowled up at the cupboard where the magical plate was. “I’ll give her a few more weeks and write to her again. It’s not going to be particularly harmful if it keeps snowing for a little while longer.”

Ron nodded. If this Cassiopeia was anything like James, she was probably trying to make someone else solve the problem for her rather than doing it herself. Maybe that was why it was taking so long. Ron wondered if a lot of witches had someone like him at their beck and call. 

“Anyway, I want you to wear a coat today so you don’t get hurt cutting the wood.”

“I’m not going to get hurt.”

“Ron.”

“Okay, okay.” Ron stood, cleared the plates from the table now that James had finally finished the eggs. “I’ll wear a coat. Do you even have a coat that I can wear?”

“Yes, come here.” James wandered away from the table, and Ron frowned at the dishes he was leaving on the counter unwashed before following him into the bedroom. There was a huge chest against one wall, which James had never opened while Ron had been here. But now he did, leaning into it and shoving what looked like a lot of clothes aside to find something. 

“Here it is.” James straightened, holding up a faded black coat made of heavy fabric. It was way too big to belong to James. “Here, put it on.”

Ron did as he was told, looking at himself in the mirror on the wall as he did. He looked like a little kid trying on something belonging to an adult. The fact that he was naked under the coat made it look kind of silly. “Why do you have this?” He asked, without thinking. “It’s way too big for you.” 

Too late he realized that might have been a question better left unasked. James had gone quiet and was looking down at the floor. “No, I mean, you don’t need to…”

“It used to belong to my older brother.” James said quietly. 

_Used to._ Ron wasn’t sure if he should apologize or just pretend he hadn’t brought it up. “Okay.” He said, for lack of something better. 

James looked up at him curiously. “You’re not going to ask?”

“You…don’t like it when I ask about your family.” Ron said uncomfortably, stretching out his arms to see how much more he’d have to grow to fill out the coat. 

“Okay.” James closed the chest with a heavy thud, still not quite looking at Ron. 

“I’m sorry.” Ron said impulsively. “I mean, you don’t have to say anything else, or anything. But I’m sorry that he’s…not here.”

“He ran away.” James said, moving over to straighten the coat and do up the buttons for Ron. “With my younger sister and…and my parents. They’re hiding somewhere where nobody can find them.” 

“Why did they run away?” Ron felt bad talking, like he was breaking something. 

“Because we would have killed them if they hadn’t.” James whispered, his hands shaking as he buttoned up the coat. 

Ron took James’s hands in his, and not able to think of anything else to do, pulled him into a hug with his other arm. James didn’t hug back, but he stood there and let Ron hold him for a minute or so. Ron wanted to say that it would be okay or something like that, but he didn’t know enough to say whether it would be, so he just kept silent, holding James to his chest. The way James said it made it sound bad, like he had just decided to kill his family one day. But Ron didn’t believe it. He believed that there was something else there. Because James wouldn’t do that. 

He just wouldn’t. 

“I…”

“Shh.” Ron said softly. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

James nodded. “I…I want to tell you about it, Ron. But I’m…I’m not ready yet.” He sounded like he might have been afraid. 

“Okay.” Ron said, rubbing James’s back. “That’s okay, James. Don’t say anything until you’re ready. I’m not going anywhere.” _I love you._ Ever since he’d realized that before, he kept thinking it, but was too afraid to say it, worried somehow that it might bother James.

James stiffened for just a second before nodding again, stepping back and wiping at his eyes. “Okay. Thank you, Ron.” He touched the coat gently. “You look good in black.” 

“Thanks.” Ron tried to smile. “Better than I do out of it?”

“No. But it’s a close second.” James patted Ron’s chest, regaining his composure. “Okay. Go get my coat and we’ll go out. We have to cut down a tree and everything, it’s going to take all day.”

“You can stay in if you want.” Ron told him. “You must have stuff to do and you’re going to be bored just watching me.”

James smiled a little bit. “I’m never bored when I’m with you.” 

That made Ron beam like a signal beacon. “Neither am I.”

“Go get my coat.” James said, pointing out to the main room. “And…thank you.”

Ron just kept smiling and went to go do as he’d been told.


	13. Avoiding a Problem does Nothing but Make it Bigger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even James cannot avoid the plot forever.

“What would you like to do today?”

“I don’t know.”

“That isn’t a very good answer.” 

“I’m…sorry?” Ron frowned down at the breakfast dishes in the basin. “Usually you decide what we do.” 

James made a noncommittal noise from the table. “Well today I’m deciding not to decide. You pick something.” 

“Are you feeling alright?” Ron asked, looking over his shoulder. James had his head on the table, but that wasn’t unusual at breakfast time. He was watching Ron do the dishes. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I’m feeling fine, Ron.” James said from the table. “I just don’t have any plans for today and I don’t feel like making any. Isn’t there anything you’d like to do?”

Ron thought about it. He had been thinking he should go up and shovel the roof off again since it wasn’t snowing today, and it was nearly time to do laundry again, but that wasn’t what James was talking about. “We could go for a walk in the woods if you wanted. You keep saying you’ll show me the centaurs.”

“Introduce, not show. They aren’t animals, they’re people.” James said sternly. “But yes, we can do that.” 

“Unless you don’t want to go out.” Ron offered. “We could also just sit in front of the fire and cuddle until…” He stopped when James sat upright, looking at the wall like there was something there. “What?”

The response was an agitated sound. “Nevermind, I know what we’re doing.” 

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Ron.” 

“James, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Language. We have visitors. Stay there.” James got up and stalked over to the front door, pulled it open with a scowl. “You’re trespassing, go away.”

A man’s voice answered him. “Good morning to you too.” James’s silence filled the air and Ron could imagine the glare the visitor was getting. “You didn’t answer our messages for so long we were worried something happened to you.”

“I’m fine, as you can see. Now get lost.” There was something in James’s voice besides the anger he was projecting. He sounded worried. 

“You aren’t going to invite us in to rest after our long journey?”

“No. You teleported onto my front lawn.” 

“Well.” The man said. Ron couldn’t see him, but he didn’t like the man’s voice. “Since we’re here and you can’t ignore us, perhaps we can finally have that meeting we’ve been waiting for. We do actually have important things to discuss, you know.” What it was, Ron thought, was that he spoke to James as if he were a child. 

“Have the meeting without me.” James said. “I’m not interested.”

“Too bad. We’re here anyway, that’s the last concession we’re making, James. Don’t try to push us any farther.” 

James was silent for a very long minute before sighing in a way that almost sounded like a snarl. “Stay here.” He said to the man. “I need to get ready.” And he slammed the door in their guest’s face. 

“James, are you okay?” Ron said, hurrying over. James was standing there, back to the door, looking lost. His eyes were darting around the room as if seeking an exit, and he looked to Ron like he might cry. 

“I’m fine. I just. I didn’t…I didn’t think they’d come all the way out here.”

“The Grand Coven?”

“Yes. I really thought they’d…” He just sighed again, a prolonged exhale that seemed tired and angry at once. “I need to get dressed.” He headed off into the back room. Ron followed him and found him digging through the little wardrobe in the corner, pulling out a pair of long pants, a shirt with a lot of buttons, a heavy cloak and boots, all black. Despite his obvious reluctance, he went about undressing and putting those on quickly. 

“Are you going to let them in?” Ron asked, after a second. “Should I make tea or something?”

“No.” James shook his head, an abrupt, jerky motion. “They’re not coming inside.”

“Okay. Should I get you anything?”

“No. Ron.” James glanced at the dresser and sighed again. “Get dressed, in your clothes there. Put your sword on.” 

“What?” Ron had stopped noticing his old clothes there on the dresser a long time ago and it took a second to realize what James meant. “Really?”

“Yes. After I’ve left, use the focus to call Julia like I showed you. Tell her what’s happening.” 

“After you’ve…” Ron hesitated. “You’re not taking me with you?”

“No.” Impatience strained James’s voice. “I can’t.”

“James, I really…” The idea of James going off and doing something that was obviously upsetting by himself left Ron very uncomfortable. He was sure that the Grand Coven wouldn’t hurt James, but…

“Ron.” James looked up at him, the distress plain on his face. “Please.” 

Ron just looked at him for a long time, their gazes locked. He didn’t want James to go off by himself. He didn’t want to be left behind. But he knew he’d just be in James’s way. As much as it hurt him to do it, Ron nodded. “Okay.” 

“Thank you.” James looked away, finished tying up his boots and stood. 

“You look really nice.” Ron said, because he didn’t know what else to say. 

“Black is my family’s colour.” James muttered, sweeping out of the room while he clasped the cloak around his neck with a pin pulled from a pocket. Ron trailed him into the main room, where James was grabbing gloves, his hat and scarf and looking around, gaze lingering on one drawer for a moment, before grabbing a carved walking stick from beside the door. “I’ll see you soon, Ron. Promise.”

“Promise.” Ron echoed, and James opened the door. 

“We can’t meet here.” He said to the Grand Coven people, who Ron still couldn’t see. “This is just my house. The Seat is up the road a ways.”

“If we’d known that we would have gone right there.” Another voice, not the first man, said irritably. 

“If you’d bothered to inform me of your coming I’d have met you there.” James said harshly, glancing at Ron one time before closing the door behind him. 

Ron stared at it for a second after James had left, feeling ridiculously alone and suddenly afraid to touch anything, as if he weren’t supposed to be here. But he shook his head and scrambled into the room to get dressed like James had told him to, and then hurried back out, knocked a few things out of the cupboard as he retrieved the focus. With shaking hands he poured a drop of the potion James had showed him on the focus. “Julia.” He said as clearly as he could, keeping the waver out of his voice. The plate shone brighter, and then stopped reflecting Ron’s pale face to show a different room altogether, one that looked a lot neater than this one. There was no Julia, though. “Julia.” He said again, louder. “Julia!”

“I can hear you, I can hear you, God.” Julia’s face came into the image, looking annoyed. She paused on seeing Ron. “Ron? You look upset, where’s James? Has something happened?” 

“He’s gone.” Ron said, words wanting to tumble out all at once, which prevented him from saying much of anything. 

“Gone where?”

“The…the Grand Coven. They just showed up at the door. They…” 

Julia cursed. “They were serious. I really didn’t think they’d come all the way out here in the winter.” 

“James didn’t either.”

“He’s meeting with them now?”

“He…” Ron tried to calm down, to breathe and remember what James had said. “He told them he couldn’t do it here, because there was a seat somewhere else?”

Julia sighed, something like relief touching her features. “He’ll be taking them to my mother’s, then. At least he had the sense to do that. Okay, stay there, Ron. I’m going to get in touch with mother.” Ron nodded, and the plate went blank, showing only his reflection again. 

Julia had said to stay put, but Ron was restless and uncomfortable in the clothes he hadn’t worn in months. They cotton and leather didn’t fit as well as they had, and he felt silly in them, like he was pretending to be someone else. For something to do, he went over and finished washing the dishes, scrubbing at them with a vigour that wasn’t really necessary. 

“Ron.” Ron looked up, pulled his hands out of the sink. “Ron?”

“I’m here, I’m here.” Ron hurried back over to the table, looked down at Julia. “Sorry, I was doing the dishes…” He realized how dumb that sounded and flushed. “Did you…figure out what to do?”

“I spoke to my mother. She wants us all to come to her house before the Coven gets there.” 

“Okay. What should I do?” She had to give him something to do. Ron couldn’t just sit here for however long this took with nothing to do, he knew he’d go crazy. 

“You’re coming too. She’s sending someone to pick you up, they’ll be there in a minute or so. Grab anything that you think you should and be ready to go.”

“Okay, but…” James had wanted him to stay here.

“Contacting me was the right thing to do.” Julia assured him. “We’ve got this under control, I promise.”

“James told me to talk to you.” Ron admitted. He had no idea what was going on anymore. 

Julia smiled. “Good. Sometimes he’s sensible. I’ll see you soon, Ron.”

“Wait!” But she was already gone, the plate just a plate once more. Ron had things he wanted to ask her, like literally anything about what was actually happening, but a tapping at the window distracted him. It was like a woodpecker on the glass, only he could also hear a voice shouting at him. 

There was a little man with wings standing in the snow on the windowsill, clearly demanding to be let in. Ron blinked, watching dumbly for a minute as the man’s raps became more and more angry, before shaking his head and hurrying over to open the window. 

“About bloody time.” The little man said when Ron did, flitting over to the stove and hovering around it to warm up. “It’s cold as the king’s balls out there and do you know how easy these wings freeze?” 

“I’m, uh, sorry?” Ron said, still not sure what was going on. “I didn’t know that…there were faeries.” That wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say, but it was close enough to the truth. 

“Well there are, get used to it.” The faery grumbled, rubbing his hands together aggressively. “She sent me to get Ron. Are you Ron?”

“Yes, I am.” Ron confirmed, mind still working to catch up. “You’re the one James’s grandmother sent to come get me?”

“Yeah, the old lady. Goes by Josephine, but Ma’am works just fine too. I’m Spike.”

Spike didn’t sound like a faery name to Ron, but he didn’t say that. “She has faeries working for her?”

“Think of it more like doing her favours. A lot of favours. Look, are you ready?” The faery asked, buzzing up in front of Ron’s face. “Apparently time’s short. I don’t understand humans and their thing with time, but the old lady says there’s not a lot of it today.”

“Yeah, uh.” Ron looked around the house. “Just give me a second.” 

“Give? You think I control how many seconds you have? Humans and time, I swear.” 

“Um, right.” Ron wasn’t sure what else to say so he turned around, went to grab his hat off the hook by the door. He didn’t have any clothes that were appropriate for going out in the snow, but the charm should keep him warm. “Do you want anything? What do faeries eat? We probably have some.”

“Pass, thanks.” Spike said, zipping here and there around the house, poking at everything with benign disinterest. “There’s plenty to eat at the old lady’s.”

“How are we going to get there?” Ron asked, moving over to the drawers and opening one, looking inside, unsure of what to do. “How did you get here so quickly?”

“Teleported, which is how we’ll get back. You should be grateful, by the by. Teleporting is a lot of fucking work and you’re huge.” 

“Language.” Ron muttered absently, deciding after a long second to reach in and grab the stone, slipping it into his pocket. Maybe it didn’t matter, but just in case. 

“I’ll use whatever language I want. Unless you want to walk.”

Walking sounded safer than teleporting. “No, I’m good. Uh, I’m ready, I guess.”

“You guess? You know your shirt’s on backwards, right?” Spike snorted, came over and stood on Ron’s shoulder as Ron checked and confirmed that the faery was right with a small groan. “You ever teleported before, kid?”

“No.”

“Nervous?”

“A little.” Ron admitted.

“Don’t be. A lot of humans tell me the first time is a lot like jumping off a cliff.” Spike was taking something out of his shirt, but it was too small for Ron to see it properly. “That’s an easy thing, right?”

“Sure, but…” Ron didn’t finish that sentence before the house blew away in an explosion of light and silence, and colour suddenly rushed towards them all at once, snapping into place as a green clearing, a little cottage on one side and a massive tree stump in the middle. Immediately Ron felt his bile rise and he nearly fell to his knees.

“If you’re going to throw up do it over there in the bushes.” An old woman’s voice said briskly. “They could use the nutrients and I don’t want you making a mess of my yard.” 

Ron nodded and turned around, finding some bushes and doing just that. He could hear Spike laughing at him. When he was finished, he stood up, wiping his mouth and trying not to shake too hard. “It’s not funny.” He grumbled.

“It is a little bit.” Spike countered.

“We’ve no time for that.” The old woman standing by the tree stump declared. She was wizened and bent over on a walking stick, dressed all in black with wide-brimmed hat to match. She looked exactly like Ron had thought witches were supposed to look before he’d met James. “James is bringing the Coven here, you say?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ron said, trying to get himself under control. The old woman nodded. “You’re James’s grandmother? Um, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Yes, Josephine. Doubtless my grandson’s told you nothing about me.” Josephine was eyeing Ron critically and Ron was struck with the feeling of being measured. 

“Not…really, no.” 

Josephine nodded, though Ron didn’t think it was at his answer, and turned around. “Well, we’ve met now.” She raised her staff and tapped it against the ground, and Ron stepped back as the tree stump lifted out of the ground until it was of a height with his chest, the roots holding it up and twisting themselves into clear shapes all around the stump. 

It was a table, he realized after a minute, and chairs. “Holy shit.”

“As if you’ve never seen magic before, child.” 

“Well…” Ron hesitated. “James doesn’t really…do a lot of magic. Not like that, anyway.” 

“Of course he doesn’t.” Josephine sighed. “Fool boy. He’d have the most powerful talent in the family if he weren’t too afraid to use it.” 

“I don’t think he’s really afraid.” Ron said, feeling like he should defend James. “He just doesn’t really, I don’t know, need to?”

“He’s afraid.” Josephine asserted, turning back to Ron. “He’s so eager to blame himself for his parents’ actions that he’s run away from everything important. But doubtless he’s told you nothing about that either.”

“No, he hasn’t.” And Ron drew himself up a little, prepared to stop Josephine from elaborating because he knew James would be upset if she did. 

“Mother.” Ron turned at Julia’s voice. She was dressed all in black as well and her hair looked windswept. Another faery was darting away from her shoulder. Tana and Jay were behind her. Jay waved at Ron. “Surely we can talk about this later? There’s rather a lot to do, isn’t there?”

“Yes, yes.” Josephine looked Ron over again. “This won’t do. Jason, fix his clothing, and Titania, his sword.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with my…”

“They aren’t black.” Julia said, putting a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “We need you to be wearing black.”

“But…James said black is your family’s colour.” Ron couldn’t help but colour at the implication behind that. “I’m not…”

“You’re the boy’s shield.” Josephine declared. She’d turned away again and was frowning at the yard. “Appearances are important. It’s bad enough everything is to be cobbled together at the last minute. We can’t have you appearing as if he just plucked you out of his garden one day.”

“Well, technically…”

“No arguments.” Ron hadn’t been arguing, but snapped his mouth shut. “It’s a five-hour walk from here to James’s house. They’re on horseback but there’s a lot of snow. We have until just before dinnertime to get this place cleaned up for the Coven.”

It looked pretty clean to Ron. “Why isn’t there snow here?” He asked. It might well have been summer in this little clearing. 

Josephine looked at him. “At my age I’ve no time for foolish weather, and less for foolish questions. After Jason measures you for new clothes, you can weed the garden. I’ll cast all of the necessary blessings on the table.”

“I can help you with that, mother.”

“Someone needs to make the meal as well, Julia, and neither of your children can cook worth a damn.” Both of Julia’s children looked sheepish at that, and Ron didn’t blame them. Josephine had that quality about her. 

“I can cook.” Ron offered. Josephine arched a brow. “James is bad at it, plus he doesn’t like anything so I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” 

“That would be a great help.” Josephine announced. “I’ll get the faeries to weed the garden. One of you will need to educate the boy, as well.”

“In…what?” Ron asked.

“Everything. Go.” And that was that. He was ushered inside Josephine’s house by James’ cousins before he could protest at all, and Josephine and Julia went about the yard to do whatever magical things they were doing. 

“They’re putting the blessings of the earth, the forest and our clan on the meeting space.” Tana explained, taking Ron’s sword and frowning at it. “This is a piece of shit. I’ll fix it for you though.” 

“Take off your clothes.” Jay said, producing his wand and a long rope from somewhere. 

“Um. Huh?” Ron blinked, probably getting the wrong idea from the rope.

“I need to measure you.” Jay rolled his eyes. “Come on, you’re naked all the time anyway and there’s no time to be shy. I promise to be a gentleman, honestly.”

“Right, sorry.” Ron went about taking off his clothes, feeling oddly self-conscious about it. 

“We’ll tell you everything you need to know about the Grand Coven while we’re working.” Tana said, fingers working over the sword. “When he left…was James okay?”

“He seemed upset.” Ron said honestly, worried about him. He was a little distracted because did Jay’s rope really need to touch him when he was getting measured? “He really wasn’t expecting them to show up at his door.”

“None of us were.” She muttered, sighing. “Okay. Pay attention, because there’s no time to repeat anything.” 

The day went by in an exhausting litany of tasks. After James’s cousins were done with him they went outside to help set up, and he only periodically saw anyone when they came in to get something or other that needed to be out there. Ron stayed in the kitchen and cooked, leaving only to get food from Josephine’s cellar. He was told to cook for fifteen and the effort took his mind off the worst of his worry about James—he was only riding through the woods on a road, it wasn’t dangerous, he reminded himself over and over—but never quite drove it from his mind. 

When it came time to get ready, they dressed Ron in well-fitted black cotton that covered him from his neck to his feet. Jay had either made or found him new boots and gloves to go with, but Ron hadn’t let him take or do anything to the hat James had given him, though Josephine wouldn’t let him wear it. His sword seemed sharper and longer than it had been and it fit nicely into a black leather sheath that strapped across his back. 

The yard seemed to hum with something when Ron went back outside. A black and green tablecloth was over the tree stump table and all the food he’d made was laid out with place settings for six. There were little lights floating in the air above the clearing. They all ate quickly from food that had been set aside from the table and Ron had only just put the dishes in the kitchen when Julia knocked on the window and jerked her head outside. 

They were all lined up at the house when James led the Grand Coven into the clearing. He didn’t look around but his eyes did fall on Ron just briefly, his expression hidden. 

Ron was suddenly struck with doubt. What if James hadn’t wanted all of this? What if he was supposed to have stayed at home and let Julia and the rest sort it out? Was he going to be upset with Ron? Before he could get too far down that line of thought Jay kicked the back of his heel. “Help him down from his horse.” He whispered. “You need to act like his servant. Appearances.” 

“Right.” Josephine was moving forward to greet the Grand Coven and Ron moved off to the side, out of their line of sight like servants did. Acting like a servant didn’t bother him in the slightest if it was James needed. 

“My greetings to the Grand Coven.” Josephine announced. “Please be welcome in our family’s hold. We’ve prepared food and drink for you and hope you find comfort under our blessed roof.” 

Ron reached James and gave him a hand down from the horse, which James clearly didn’t know how to dismount properly. “I’m sorry.” He said quietly. “I don’t know if you wanted me to…”

James patted Ron on the head as he got down. The other witches’ attention was all on Josephine at the moment. “This is exactly what I needed you to do.” He whispered, a small smile gracing his face. “Good boy, Ron.”

Ron couldn’t hold back his grin. “You’re okay, right?”

“I’ll be fine once this is over with.” His eyes flitted up and down. “You look really nice.” 

“They insisted I wear black.”

“It’s a good colour on you.” James smiled one more time and Ron tried to figure out what exactly that had meant, but it was time for them to rejoin the group. James strode over to the table, took the seat nearest the house, which was taller than the others, and sighed. “Let’s get this over with, please.”


	14. Conflicting Priorities Can Make Planning for the Future Difficult

“Any time you want to start.” 

“We thank you very much for your hospitality and…”

“Yes, yes.” James said, obviously irritated. He’d been sitting for three seconds and was already shifting uncomfortably. “I assume you came because you wanted a meeting, not to compliment my grandmother’s cooking.” 

It was Ron’s cooking, but he didn’t say anything. It was important that the Grand Coven see James with a loyal servant, he’d been told. 

Jay and Tana had told them all of their names and it wasn’t hard to put them to faces. The tall, wan man who had done most of the talking thus far was named Timothy Lariat, and he wore blue. Wearing red beside him was a man named Obadiah, who Jay had told him looked like a sad basset hound. He hadn’t been wrong. Next to him was Jezebel Threefinger, who actually had twelve fingers and was pretty in a round way. She wore yellow. In white was Cameron, who had been old when James’s grandmother had sat with the Grand Coven decades ago and still looked able to break Ron in half. Cassiopeia Titlehorn, whom James had asked to fix whatever was going on with winter, was seated in purple on James’s left. She was hook-nosed and had severe features, but her eyes looked like ones that laughed often. 

Ron counted them all off to make sure he knew who they were. Each of them had also brought someone with them, and the servants were all standing behind their respective person at the table, so Ron did the same with James. 

“There are many things to discuss.” Timothy said. “As we’ve not met in full in two years.”

“I didn’t realize my presence at the table was so vital to the affairs of the Coven.” James said, reaching for the teacup that was steaming in front of him. He brought it to his lips while absently reaching for the sugar, only to pause when he realized that Ron had done that for him when he’d set the table. Ron didn’t have to see James’s expression to know he’d be smiling a little. “Very well, what is it that you want my opinion on?”

“There have been some important developments regarding the leystones.” Obadiah’s voice sounded like that of an old hound too. 

“What?” James asked, eyebrow cocked. “All of them?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Jezebel said archly. “Let’s start in the capital. The mages have found their chosen one. We can assume that he’ll try to bind their stone to him once he’s trained.” 

“And they’ll kill him doing it.” James’s voice went flat. 

“Not if he really is the one spoken of in their prophecy, presumably.” 

“One of us should go to the capital and make contact with them, and with the boy.” Timothy declared. Jezebel and Obadiah’s eyes both swung to James, but Timothy went on. “I offer myself, since we all know James won’t do it.”

“He won’t be very old, most like.” Cassiopeia sounded thoughtful. “Someone his age might be a good idea.”

“I’d much prefer we sent someone we can rely on to keep us appraised of the situation.” Jezebel said curtly. Ron narrowed his eyes at all of them.

James took a sip of tea. “Cameron.” He said, as if the rest of the table wasn’t there. “You can do it, right?” 

“I suppose.” Cameron gestured impatiently at the young woman who stood behind her, who went about taking food from the dishes on the table and putting them on Cameron’s plate. Technically Ron thought they weren’t supposed to start until James started eating, but it looked like Cameron didn’t care. James glanced at Ron, quirking a smile, and nodded at the table so Ron would get food for him as well. “The archmage and I do go back a ways as well.” 

James nodded in the way he did when he was done talking about something, but Timothy wasn’t done. “There are four other people at the table; you two don’t just get to decide that yourselves.” 

“I wasn’t trying to exclude you, Timothy.” James said, sounding bored now. “Cameron is the logical choice. This boy of theirs will have been plucked out of nowhere and told he was their saviour. They’ll have filled his head with stories of how special and important he is, and if he is the real chosen one, you can assume he’ll have a natural talent to back it up. Everyone he meets is going to think he’s amazing. It wouldn’t hurt him to have to work to impress someone, and Cameron is hard to impress.”

“So am I.”

“Yes, and people resent you for it. The way she does it makes people _want_ to impress her.” James smiled at Timothy. “Even I’m not convinced she doesn’t think I’m useless, and every time I remember that I find myself trying to find a way to change her mind.” 

James had his attention on Timothy so he wouldn’t have seen, but the appraising look in Cameron’s eyes told Ron that he may have been wrong about her thinking he was useless. When Timothy finally nodded his agreement, James turned his head and beckoned for Ron to lean in. “What?”

“Nothing, just pretend we’re talking for a minute.” James whispered. 

“We are talking.”

“I know. I’m sorry about all this.” 

“I’m sorry, too.” Ron said, confused.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.”

“It is, actually. I’m really bored, Ron. Rescue me from them.”

“No. Do your job, James. And eat something, you’re hungry. I made the vegetable soup you like.”

“You made the food?” James blinked. 

“Yes, now eat it and stop ignoring the Grand Coven. Your grandmother put some sort of spell on the table to keep it warm and everything.” 

James looked at him for a second and returned his attention to the table. “If it’s occurred to us that they’ll bind their chosen one to their leystone, it will occur to others as well. We can assume he’ll be attacked.”

“I’m sure I can handle that.” Cameron said with a small smile, and James nodded. “I believe we were promised information about the other stones as well?” Ron had a feeling from the way she asked that she already knew what was going to be said about them.

“The wizard’s stone,” Obadiah declared in a deep intonation, “has been stolen.” 

The silence that followed seemed to stretch for a long minute, and Ron thought from everyone’s expressions that Cameron and Timothy were the only ones who had known that. “When?” James asked, no sense of what he was thinking in his voice. 

“Mid-autumn. It was in the possession of Quentin Firecrest, who lives in Bright Harbour. It was taken from his house and nobody can find where it’s gone.” 

“You should cast a seeking spell.” Cassiopeia told James, tasting the fish and raising her eyebrows. “You’d be the best suited to finding it.”

“That’s never worked with the others.” James said, and Ron didn’t know he’d ever looked. “I’ll do it, but I won’t find anything. Anyone who recognizes a leystone is smart enough to disguise it. Hold on.” He leaned back again and spoke quietly to Ron. “Nod like I’m telling you to do something.”

“Are you trying to piss them all off?” Ron asked, nodding. 

“Language. And yes. This chair is uncomfortable.”

“That chair is made from tree roots, what did you expect? Also it’s awesome, how come you don’t have furniture like this?”

“Too much work.” James looked away from Ron suddenly, up at the sky. “Oh.” He sound, louder. “Winter’s ended. It’s about time.”

Ron looked up as well and he wasn’t the only one. The sky didn’t seem any different to him. “I told you my people would get it done in good time.” Cassiopeia said with a curt nod. “You’re welcome.”

“Thank you.” It actually did sound like James meant that. 

“The necromancer’s leystone.” Cassiopeia said, while attention was on her. “There’s a man in Merket who’s hired a team to retrieve it. I read the omens when he hired them and they were very confused, but there is a chance of success.”

“So this man actually knows where the stone is?” Timothy demanded.

“I didn’t ask, I didn’t want to appear too interested. Theodore is up to something and I don’t know what. I don’t want him to decide I’m an enemy.” Cassiopeia smiled grimly. “But it seems that way, yes.” 

“The omens.” Jezebel said. “When you say they were confused.” 

Cassiopeia shrugged. “There were a lot of things that didn’t make sense. Two swords were prominent, one of them was all rusty. There was also a pack of wolves, a girl dancing in a field, an army. The team Theodore sent is going to die, except they aren’t, except they already are dead. The reading wasn’t clear on whether any of them even existed, frankly.”

James leaned back to talk to Ron again. “If I told you to start touching yourself right now, would you?” 

“What?” Ron nearly choked, and tried to keep his face calm. He couldn’t quite help the flush of colour that moved up his neck, though. 

“Answer the question.”

“Um.” He cast his eyes around at the Coven. “I don’t know.” He said, honestly. 

“Okay.” James said. “Don’t, I was just curious.” He leaned forward again. “Is this Theodore a necromancer?” He asked. 

“No, he’s not magical at all.” Cassiopeia said. “He collects magical artifacts.”

“For noble purposes, I’m sure.” Obadiah muttered.

“Does Merket have a big centipede population?” 

Cassiopeia looked at James for a minute. “Not that I’m aware of.” With the possible exception of Cameron, everyone seemed as confused by the question as Ron was. 

“Hm.” James tapped his finger on the table. “I don’t think we can discount the possibility that he’s working for Solomon.” 

“Or Jocelyn.” Cameron said pointedly. Now the entire clearing was suddenly stifled by a heavy silence and Ron felt like he was missing something obvious. “It is the necromancer’s stone we’re talking about.” 

James looked at Cameron for a long time before answering. “Or her.” He finally said with a nod. 

“You still believe that Jocelyn and Solomon are working together?” Timothy asked. “You’re the only one who thinks that, James.”

“Despite everything that’s happened, I like to think that I know my mother better than any of you.” James answered, his voice cold. “You said there was information about all the stones. Have we found Solomon, then?”

“Yes.” Timothy nodded. “The Fury Plateau in the Roe Range down in the south. It’s a volcanic range, not heavily populated. But persistent rumour insists that there’s a man there styling himself the Sorcerer King, experimenting on people and so forth.”

“Rumour?”

“ _Persistent_ rumour.” Timothy repeated. “From a lot of different sources. He’s there, I’m sure of it.” 

“Fine.” James said, tenting his hands in thought. 

“Just fine?” Jezebel asked. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Would you like for us to go kill him?” James asked. “We can’t do that. Tell the Kyainese king to raise an army.”

“He won’t.” Obadiah said balefully. “The Roe Range is hard to penetrate and not strategically useful, and they haven’t paid taxes in decades anyway, so what’s the difference to him?”

“What’s the difference to us?” James wanted to know. Ron also wanted to know that. “Who cares if he wants to have a little empire down there in the south?”

“In a lot of different places,” Cassiopeia said, apparently to herself, “people are starting to notice nests of long red centipedes. They’re surprisingly hard to get rid of. And seeing as you just asked me about them, I expect that’s all I need to say.” 

“I know a poison that does the trick.” James muttered. He leaned back and spoke quietly to Ron. “The way this is going,” he whispered, “I may need to send you back to the house to get the leystone. I’m sorry.”

“I have it in my pocket.” Ron murmured. James frowned and Ron shrugged incrementally. “I thought, you know, just in case.”

It seemed for a second like James might be annoyed with him, but then he smiled. “Good job. I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

“Pretty sure it’s because I’m cute.”

“That’s probably it.” James leaned forward again. “So Solomon’s gotten active and most of the leystones are suddenly transient again.”

“It’s not a coincidence.” Jezebel insisted. “This is why we’ve been trying to get your attention all this time, James.”

“Yes, yes.” James sighed. “For what it’s worth you have my promise that I’ll protect our stone.” He held out his hand to Ron and after a second Ron realized what he was supposed to do, and dug the stone out to put in James’s palm, to several raised eyebrows around the table. James fiddled with the stone as he spoke. “But for posterity I feel I should repeat that the leystones don’t do anything, and Solomon’s a sorcerer. He can only use one of them, so who cares if he wants the other four to decorate his shelves with?”

“That’s an awful lot of power for someone we know to be unstable.” Obadiah drawled. “And I don’t think you call yourself a king and content yourself with a plateau in the corner of the world. What if your mother and this Theodore actually are in league with him? What if other magic-users are? Who else could be?” He was watching the stone in James’s hands. 

“This Coven agreed years ago to oppose Solomon and retrieve the sorcerer’s leystone from him.” Timothy said in a lecturing tone. 

“Well, let me know how that goes.” James muttered. “The six of us can’t just go and fight him.”

“I’m not suggesting that. We’re sending Cameron to the capital to see the mages, and Obadiah has contacts among the wizards. The remaining cabals of sorcerers don’t like Solomon much either. All those powers together will get the attention of both kings. We can destroy him now before he gets too powerful.” 

“Fine.” James said, sounding annoyed. “Then do that.”

“We need your cooperation.” Cassiopeia said. She seemed, if anything, mildly amused. “James, nobody will take us seriously if we try to take a proactive role and our leystone is sitting in your dresser drawer.” She gave it a meaningful look. “You need to agree to be involved.”

James didn’t answer for a minute, sighing and looking off to the side. He shook his head and said quietly, “I never wanted this.”

“But this is the way it is now.” Timothy said, firmly. 

“Fine.” James stood, stretching a kink out of his back. “Fine. I’ll help. Meeting adjourned.”

“There is much else to discuss, James.” Timothy sounded irritated for some reason, though he had gotten what he wanted so Ron wasn’t sure why. “We aren’t finished here.”

“We are for tonight. It’s been a long day, I’m tired and none of you have let your servants eat yet. Please enjoy the use of my table. We’ll talk again tomorrow.” And James stalked off, into Josephine’s house. With a glance at Julia, who nodded, Ron followed after him. 

“James?”

“Ron.” Once they were both inside with the door closed after them, James sighed, biting his lip. He turned and put his hands on Ron’s chest, the stone between two fingers. “I’m really sorry. I wish…” He trailed off.

“It’s okay. That all sounded pretty serious.” 

James nodded, grabbing the front of Ron’s shirt, fiddling with the collar. He slipped the leystone into a shirt pocket that Ron hadn’t noticed. “I wish you didn’t have to wear this.” He muttered absently. “It was pretty serious. I was stupid for ignoring them for so long.”

“You must have had a good reason.”

“I’m scared.” James said, looking at the floor. “That’s not a good reason.”

“I think it is.” Ron wanted to reach out and hug James, but something stopped him. 

“They really don’t do anything.” James insisted quietly. “The person using one gets stronger, but that’s all. They’re just rocks. Stupid rocks. It’s not…they’re not worth all of this.”

He wasn’t talking, Ron thought, about what had just been talked about outside. The front of Ron’s shirt felt heavy. “It sounds like there are people who don’t think that.” 

“Yes.” James sighed, leaning forward to rest his head on Ron’s shoulder. Now Ron put his arms around James. “Sometimes I wish I could be someone else, Ron.”

Ron wasn’t entirely sure what the right thing to say to that was, but that broke his heart a little and he had to say something, so he said the first thing that came to mind. “I’m glad you aren’t, though. If you were someone else you wouldn’t be you, and I…” _I love you._ “I’m happy knowing you.”

“That’s…” James laughed briefly. “That’s such a stupid thing to say, Ron.”

“I’m sorry.” 

James shook his head, wrapping his arms around Ron as well. “Thank you.” He whispered. “You did so good today, Ron. You did such a good job, I…thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” Ron rubbed James’s back, smiling at the surge of pride he felt. “Are you going to be okay tomorrow?”

“Are you going to be there?”

“Of course.” Ron wasn’t sure why James would even question that. 

“Then I’ll be fine.” James pulled back to kiss Ron lightly on the mouth. “As long as you’re there I’ll be fine.” 

Right then Ron decided that no matter what happened, he was always going to be there.


	15. There is Great Value in Being Home with the People you Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now return to this story's regularly-scheduled fluffiness.

“It’s warm out.”

“I don’t know that I’d call this warm.”

“It’s less cold, anyway.”

“Yes.”

“The snow is melting too.”

“These are things that happen in spring, Ron.” 

“I know.” Ron stuck his hands in his pockets, part of him feeling weird that he was still wearing the clothes Jay and Tana had given him. “It’s just nice to see them, finally. Much longer and the farmers would have lost the entire planting season.” 

James nodded. “That’s true.” He glanced up at the sun. “A day or two longer and I would have had to do something myself. I just hope that everything doesn’t melt too quickly. I don’t want our house to flood.” 

_Our house._ Ron smiled. “I think we’ll be okay.” He said. “As long as the river doesn’t overflow too badly.” 

“This means you can start catching fish again.” James observed. “I like fresh fish better than the dried-out ones.”

“It also means we can start bathing in the river again rather than in that terrible tub.” 

“Yes, though now that I know how much you don’t like taking it out, I’m going to make you do it as a punishment when you do something I don’t like.” 

That seemed kind of mean. “Good fucking thing I never do anything you don’t like, then.” Ron said. James just looked at him until Ron looked away to hide his smile. 

“I’m tired.” James said, breaking his gaze and wandering off the path they were walking to lean against a tree. “We’ve been walking all day.”

“We’re almost there.” Ron told him, coming to stand beside him and looking around. “You can have a nap when we get home.” He didn’t blame James for being tired—the meeting of the Grand Coven had taken four full days. 

“You don’t know that we’re almost there.” James protested, closing his eyes. “You got to teleport all the way to my grandmother’s house.” 

“ _Got to_ isn’t how I’d phrase it.” Ron said, remembering that experience. He also didn’t blame James for turning down the offer of being teleported back. “But we are almost there. We’re around where that centipede mound used to be before you poisoned them all. See, you can see what’s left of the mound just there.” 

James looked where Ron was pointing and blinked. The little hill of mud was barely visible under the melting snow, but it was definitely there. Ron was pretty sure the tree they were standing under was the one where they’d sat to wait for the poison to take effect. “You’re finally learning how to be more observant.” James said after a moment. 

Ron shrugged. “You always say I don’t pay enough attention. So I’m trying to pay more.” 

James smiled. “Thank you.” He closed his eyes again.

“You want to rest here?” Ron asked. “It’s only a little while longer until we’re back home.”

“Too tired to walk anymore.” James said. “Carry me the rest of the way.”

“Okay.” Ron crouched down in front of James, motioning for him to climb onto his back. 

James just looked down at him. “I was joking.”

“I don’t really think you were.”

“Okay, I wasn’t, but I just assumed you’d tell me to stop being so lazy.” 

“I think you’ve earned the right to be lazy after the last few days.” Ron said, gesturing again. “Come on, it’s not that much farther. I can carry you right to the bed.” 

A vague smile playing across his lips, James climbed onto Ron’s back, wrapping his arms around Ron’s neck and wrapping legs around Ron’s waist. He put his head on Ron’s shoulder as Ron stood, shifting James’s weight more comfortably and grabbing him under the legs, and started off towards the house. 

Ron assumed he’d fallen asleep until James spoke again several minutes later. “I bet this isn’t what you had in mind when I made you my servant before.” 

“Not really.” Ron admitted, though he wasn’t sure what he had had in mind, if he were honest. “But it’s nice. I…” _I love you._ “I really like you, so…” Ron trailed off, colour rising in his face for no particular reason. 

“I really like you too, Ron.” James said, his breath against Ron’s neck. “I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Me too.” Ron found that suddenly he wasn’t feeling James’s weight at all. 

“I need you to do something else for me, Ron.” James said. “I need you to start pestering me every few days to make sure I’m doing the work I’m supposed to be doing for the Grand Coven.” 

“Okay.” James had agreed to work on a number of things for the Coven, and if he were honest Ron had sort of been picturing it all piling up in a corner somewhere while he ignored it. It was kind of a relief to know he didn’t want to let that happen. 

“I’m going to try to do it, but if I get lazy or forget, even if I get mad when you remind me…”

“I’ll remind you.” Ron promised. “But I don’t think you’re going to forget. Even if it’s only because you don’t want them to come back and bug us again.” 

“That’s true.” James admitted. Ron couldn’t really see his face, but he thought James was smiling. “I’m really sorry about all this.”

“You don’t need to apologize, and I already told you not to worry about it.” 

“I know. If…Ron, if you didn’t owe me this year, do you think we could have been friends?”

Ron frowned. “I think we’re friends anyway, James.” Even if maybe Ron wished it was a bit more than that, he was being realistic. 

“Really?” The surprise in James’s voice made Ron’s heart hurt a little. Here Ron was, in love with this stupid witch who hadn’t even thought they were friends. “Okay. Thank you, Ron.”

“Look, we’re home.” They had come around a bend in the path and James’s house was in full view now. Ron picked up the pace a little bit and soon they were over the little bridge and onto to the main property. The snow was melting across the clearing, though there was still quite a bit of it. The ice in the river had started to break up, and they could hear water rushing underneath the broken pieces that clogged up the flow. 

James lifted his head and frowned. “All this water is going to drown my plants.” 

“Maybe you can magic the ground to be a little drier?” Ron suggested. He didn’t really know, but it seemed like if Josephine could magic summer around her house year-round, James should be able to make the ground drier. 

Plus, Josephine’s comment about James being the most powerful witch in the family but losing it because he never used the power was sticking with him. He kind of wanted to find a way of talking James into using more magic to prevent that.

“Hm.” James said thoughtfully as Ron approached the house. “I might be able to do that, actually. That’s not a terrible idea.” 

“You must be a good influence on me.”

“I guess so.” James agreed.

Ron opened the door and carried James into the house, through the main room and into the bedroom in the back, where he deposited James on the bed. “As promised.” 

James nodded and looked at the pillows as if to lay down, but didn’t. “Thank you. I should go work.”

“Tomorrow.” Ron said as he started undressing, taking off the sword and carefully folding the clothes he’d been given, putting them all on James’s dresser. He felt a lot more comfortable afterwards, like he hadn’t quite fit into his body until he’d taken them off. “You can have a day or two where you don’t need to do anything, James.” 

“Okay.” He looked up at Ron and smiled, a clear and genuine smile. “You look better without all that on.”

“I know. You keep telling me.” 

“I’m going to give you something.’ James said. “To reward you for everything you’ve done in the last little while. I really appreciate how much help you were, Ron.”

“I don’t want anything that you don’t already give me.” Ron answered, leaning down and kissing James on the mouth on impulse, lingering for a second before pulling back. “That’s good.” He said. 

“A kiss?” 

“No, this.” Ron brushed his thumb over James’s lips. “You’re smiling. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you smile.” 

James just looked at Ron, colour rising in his face. It wasn’t a reaction Ron got to see very often and he caught himself grinning. James tugged his hand until Ron sat beside him on the bed, hugging him from the side. “You’re too easy to please.” He muttered. “I’m going to do something for you.” 

“I don’t need you to do something for me.” Ron repeated. 

“Maybe I feel like spoiling you. You belong to me, so I can do that if I want.” 

“If that’s what you want.” Ron agreed, because James wasn’t wrong. “But then you’ll complain about how spoiled I am.”

“You just carried me home on your back. I don’t think I have the moral high ground in this.” 

“Well.” Ron shrugged. “Maybe I felt like spoiling you too.” He did, honestly. At least when James wasn’t feeling well like he hadn’t been with all this. It made Ron just want to do everything in the world for him until he was happy again. 

“I’m spoiled without your help.” James said quietly. “This is a silly conversation.” 

“I like having silly conversations with you.” 

“Of course you do.” James sighed. “Me too. You need to start making supper soon.”

“Yeah, it’s getting a bit late.” Ron agreed. “You must be hungry.”

James shook his head. “Not yet. Cuddle with me here for a while.”

“Okay. Do me a favour?”

“What?”

“Take off your clothes too for a while?” James looked at him. “I don’t mean like that. Just...” He didn’t really know why, honestly. He just wanted to be able to touch James as closely as he could for a while. “Just because?” 

“Okay.” James pulled away and started undressing, and Ron moved into the centre of the bed and fixed the pillows so the two of them could sit for a while. James all but sat in Ron’s lap and he pulled the blankets over them for a little bit of warmth, the skin-to-skin contact making Ron smile. “You’re warm.” James said contentedly. 

“So are you. If you wanted to go to sleep…”

“No, I’m going to stay awake for now. I’ll sleep after supper. Let’s keep talking.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Something silly.” 

It was, Ron thought, probably the best way to spend the afternoon.


	16. There are Far More Layers to the World than Most of Us Can Perceive

“Oh, damn.” 

“What was that?” 

“I left something I need in the house.” 

“No, I mean, what did you say?” 

“You didn’t hear me?” 

“I did.” Ron said, smiling up at James. “You swore.” 

James looked down at him for a minute, a light dusting of colour across his cheeks. “You missed some weeds back there.” He muttered, pointing to somewhere behind Ron. 

“What did you forget?” Ron asked, still smiling. “I can go get it for you.” 

“You’re all muddy.” James frowned down at the mud that was his garden. Most of the plants were coming in just fine but there was definitely too much water in the soil. “I’ll be right back.” 

“I’ll be here.” Ron said, returning his attention to the weeds. 

“I know.” James answered quietly, before moving past Ron and disappearing around the corner and into the house. 

It was a few minutes before James came back and Ron spent in on his knees in the mud, pulling all the weeds that had started to sprout despite all the water in the ground. The plants were coming in as well, though Ron thought they didn’t look too hot, and since he knew James was worried as well he guessed it wasn’t his imagination. 

Just when he was starting to think it was taking James an awfully long time to find whatever he was looking for Ron heard footsteps squelching through the mud. “You didn’t have any trouble, did you?” He asked without turning around. “I’ve been trying to label everything when I rearrange the cupboards. I hope I didn’t…”

“It’s fine.” James said, coming up behind Ron and patting him on the head absently as he passed. “It was right where it was supposed to be.” He had a little vial of powder in his other hand. 

And he wasn’t wearing a shirt, which he had been when he’d gone in. “Where’s your shirt?” 

“In the house.” James said, crouching in front of his basket of things and uncorking the vial to add some of the powder to the mixture he was making with a stained pestle and mortar.

“Why…”

“Because it’s not fair for me to expect something of you that I can’t do myself.” 

Ron looked at James for a minute, face scrunched in thought, until he realized what that meant. “I think me following rules that you don’t have to is whole point of you being the boss, actually.” 

“Only if the rules are fair.” James insisted.

“They’re fair.” Ron said, standing, wiping his hands on his thighs and coming over to see what James was doing. “I’ve never thought you weren’t fair.” 

James glanced at him. “I’m glad.” He looked down at his mixture, which was a light blue paste. “Does this look mixed enough to you?” 

“I don’t know.” Ron wasn’t sure what it was supposed to look like. “I don’t see any lumps or anything.” 

“Okay.” James put the pestle and mortar down and scooped the mixture out with his fingers, rubbing it all over his hands until they were coated with it. “Step back a little bit.” 

Ron did, and James reached down and buried both of his hands in the mud, crouching completely still for a moment. His eyes were closed and his lips moved, and though no sound came out, Ron imagined him singing for just a second. 

All at once the ground around them dried up, not to the point of being dry, but to a moistness that was more normal for soil in the spring. Ron looked around, not able to stop from laughing a little. The whole garden seemed to have been seeped of its unnecessary water. “It worked.” 

“Good.” James took his hands out of the dirt and stood, dry washing them as he did. “Hold on, I have to pee.”

Ron looked at him. “More sympathetic magic?” 

“All witchcraft is a little bit sympathetic. I’ll be back in a minute.” And James trotted over to the river. 

Ron got back on his knees and continued weeding, glancing up every so often to see if James was coming back. After a bit he noticed James heading back in his direction, but slowly, pausing at every plant to run a hand along it, crouching in to give it a few words. 

Even from here it was hard not to notice that the plants all got brighter and more lively when James was finished with them. Curious, Ron wandered over to him. “Are you magicking them better?” He asked. 

“Just encouraging them a little bit.” James said, crouching down in front of the chokevine that he’d found Ron in. It wasn’t nearly as big as it had been last year, but it was definitely growing back. Ron glared at it as it wrapped a tendril around James’s wrist. “You’re going to get really big again.” James cooed at it. “Big and strong.” 

The plant seemed to rustle in answer. “Do…” Ron almost immediately regretted speaking and he looked away in mild embarrassment. James was looking up at him now and he had to say something. Hopefully James wouldn’t notice that he was jealous of a plant. “When you talk to them, do they talk back to you?” He asked. “I’ve been wondering for a while.”

James smiled as he carefully unwrapped his wrist from the chokevine and stood. “They sing.” He said, moving to the next plant. 

“Plants sing?” 

“All the time.” James nodded, patting the Owl’s Perch on its little bulb. 

“That’s really cool.” Ron hadn’t known that, but he guessed it was one of those things that you had to be a witch to know about. 

“I guess so.” James was slowly making his way back to the basket, visiting the plants along the way. 

The distance in his tone gave Ron pause. “What do they sing about?” 

James paused, turned and looked at Ron, an expression of mild confusion on his face. “They…you know, only one other person has ever asked me that.” 

“I’m sorry.” Ron said, worried that he’d done it again. It seemed like he was having a harder time not asking James things he didn’t want to answer lately. “You don’t have to…”

“No, it’s fine.” James smiled. “They sing about the things plants are interested in, mostly. The weather, other plants, animals and people who live in the forest. But…if you ask them the right way, they know a lot about the power in the earth.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Ron said, looking around at the plants. 

“I, um. You can learn a lot of witchcraft by listening to plants.” James said, and now he sounded a little vague. “They’re not really great teachers, so you have to be patient. I mean, they can’t teach you how to make potions or anything; it’s more like…the idea behind how our magic is supposed to work, if that makes sense.” 

Ron nodded. “I get it.”

“Really?” James blinked. He sounded like he didn’t believe Ron. James smiled a little bit, that disbelief still clear. “You know what, I think you do.”

“The way you explain it, it seems pretty obvious.”

“My parents never got it.” James muttered, and he sighed, shook his head. “I’m the only person in my family who can hear them. I don’t think they trusted a source of knowledge that they couldn’t hear themselves.” 

“That’s too bad.” Ron said, again not knowing what to say when James brought up his family. “I’d think they would have trusted you, though.”

James just looked at the garden for a minute. “Yeah. I have some more spells I need to cast.”

“What kind of spells?” Ron asked, because it was clear that James was changing the subject on purpose. 

“Blessings, fertility spells, empowerment of the earth. I’m supposed to do them every spring. Usually I forget, but I’m out here today anyway.” James shivered a little. It was warming up quite a bit—Ron thought they were actually nearing summer already—but it still wasn’t really warm. 

“You should put your shirt back on.”

“In a week.” James said with a tone of finality, returning to the basket and pulling out a vial of cloudy liquid. “When you’re finished weeding, go clean up in the river. Oh, I got mud in the house before.”

“I’ll clean it up.”

“Sorry.” James did look a little abashed, actually. 

“It’s just mud.” Ron said with a shrug. He was pretty much covered in it from being on his hands and knees in it all morning. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“Okay.” Ron thought James might be worrying about it a little bit anyway and wondered what had gotten in to him lately. “Ron?” 

“Yeah?” Ron paused in his scan of the garden, looking for where the worst of the weeds still were. “What is it?” 

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Ron asked, confused. 

James wasn’t looking up at him, fiddling with the cork on the vial. He shook his head. “Just, thank you. That’s all.” 

“I…”

“The weeds, Ron.”

“Right, okay.” 

Biting the inside of his cheek, Ron went back to work and tried not to worry too much about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am almost caught up to the most recent chapters on my [ Tumblr ](https://underhandedpenguin.tumblr.com), and then maybe I start posting something interesting instead of just re-uploading content that everyone has already seen.
> 
> But probably not tbh.


	17. Gratitude Takes a Lot of Different Forms

“Ron?” 

“Yeah.”

“Come outside for a minute.”

“Okay.” Ron frowned. He was making lunch, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t sit on the counter for a few minutes. James had gotten up from whatever he was working on at the table today and headed outside. 

He did that periodically, so Ron hadn’t thought much of it. He headed over to the door where James was waiting. He looked nervous. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Close your eyes.” 

Ron did as he was told, and James took his hand and led him outside slowly. “What’s going on?” 

“It’s a surprise.” 

That was weird. “Okay.” Ron said, because obviously he trusted James. 

The garden was to the right of the house on leaving, and James turned them left, which lead to just a grassy span in between the river and the little rut that divided the house from the rest of the forest. There wasn’t much there as far as Ron knew. Ron was getting a little excited for probably the wrong reasons, and he knew it was showing, which made it all the worse. 

“Really?” James asked all of the sudden. So obviously he had noticed. 

“It’s the closing my eyes.” Ron muttered, red in the face. 

“Right, I forgot about that.” James said. “Next time we have sex I’ll blindfold you. But we’re not doing that right now.”

“Sorry.” Ron was always looking forward to the next time they had sex in a vague, hormonal sort of way, but it was now a lot more concrete. Hopefully it was soon. Lately, James had been too tired after working most of every day on his work for the Grand Coven, or on his own spells like the ones he’d cast on the garden before, to do much with him at night. 

“Don’t be, it’s fine.” James stopped walking and Ron did too. “You can open your eyes now.” 

Ron did, blinking in the sun. He didn’t see anything immediately out of the ordinary about the lawn, though after a second his eyes came to rest on a small mound of what looked like clay in the centre of the grass. On inspection, it almost looked like a person. “What is that?” 

“A present for you.” James said, kicking at the grass a little. 

“I said you didn’t…”

“But I did.” James looked down at the ground and Ron followed him. His sword was sitting there in the grass. 

“How did you get that out here without me seeing?” 

“Magic.” James rolled his eyes. “You, um, you like swordplay, don’t you?” 

“Yeah.” Ron bent down to pick up the sword, waiting for James’s nod before doing so. “I mean, it’s kind of fun and I was pretty good at it, I think. It’s how I got in to that mercenary guild I was part of.” Vaguely, Ron wondered for the first time what they thought about his disappearance. Had he just been written off as dead? They probably didn’t care that much, but maybe he should write them a letter or something. 

“When you came to kill Julia, yes.”

“Yeah.” Ron flushed a little. That had been so long ago, he couldn’t imagine wanting to do that now. “And went to your house instead.” 

James smiled at him and patted him on the head. “Anyway. I know you like it and you haven’t really had any chance to practice since you’ve been here. And I don’t want you to lose your skills because of me, so…” He nodded at the form in the grass. 

Ron looked from James to the form to his sword and back to James. “You magicked me a training partner.” He said, after the minute it took him to put it together. 

“Yes.” James was furiously red in the face now. “Once you draw your sword he’ll stand up.” 

“James…” Ron couldn’t help the tears that came to his eyes. “That’s…really, really thoughtful of you.”

“It’s nothing huge. I just wanted to thank you for all your help.”

“And I’m really grateful.” Ron said honestly. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” It wasn’t the training partner, even. It was the effort James had clearly put into thinking of something that Ron would want that was choking him up so much. He leaned over and gave James a kiss on the mouth. “Thank you.” 

James stepped back, still red in a way that made Ron want to carry him to bed. “You should try it out. Animation magic isn’t my strong suit and I’m not sure I got it right.” 

“Okay, I’m sure you did, though.” Ron gave James one more fast kiss before stepping away, drawing the new sword Tana had given him, and facing the automaton. 

It stood, about his height but without a head. “Wait.” Ron said, recognizing it. “Is that…”

“Yes.” James said. “I used the plaster mud from before.”

Now Ron flushed. “I thought you got rid of that.”

“I didn’t.”

“You must have made that clay sword its holding.” 

“Yes.” 

Ron smiled again and approached the dummy, seeing with mild dismay that it was still a pretty accurate cast of his naked body. He couldn’t even see the cracks from where the mud had been broken before. Ron raised his weapon and the dummy did too, and soon they were sparring, the moves Ron had learned ages ago coming naturally as he jabbed and slashed and dodged the clay facsimile. 

It took about two minutes for the copy to knock Ron’s sword wide and put a clay sword at his throat before going completely still. “Shit.” He said.

“Language.” James said, approaching him from behind. That James had seen him lose was all the more embarrassing. “I guess it works.”

“And I guess I really do need the practice.”

“Yes.” James said quietly, sucking briefly on his top lip. “How do you expect to protect me if a mud statue of you is better than you are?” 

Ron laughed. “Sorry. I’ll get better.” 

“I’m joking, Ron. It’s supposed to mirror you in skill.” 

“This really is amazing, James.” Ron said. The automaton hadn’t put its sword away yet and Ron dropped his on the grass, and only then did it retreat and move into a crouched position. “I honestly don’t know what to say.” 

“You don’t need to say anything. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.” 

“I will.” Ron promised. 

“You can practice as much as you like, as long as it’s when you’re not working.” 

“That won’t tire you out?” 

“No, the spell is self-sustaining. It draws power from the ground.” 

“That’s really cool.”

“You already said that.” James muttered, flushing again. 

“And I mean it.” Ron insisted. “I think you’re amazing, James.” _I love you._

“Thank you.” James said, obviously uncomfortable. “And thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Just doing my job.” Ron grinned.

James smiled back, and it was a bit more reserved. “Yes. I know. Can you come inside for now and rematch him later? I’m hungry.” 

“Sure.” Ron said, picking up his sword and trotting over to where he’d left the scabbard. “I’m making a salad.”

“There’d better not be cheese in it again.”

“Cheese is good for you.”

“Ron, no.” James said, with such a stern look that Ron had to laugh. 

“Fine. I’ll leave it out this time.”

“You’d better not sneak any onions in there either.”

“You’re so picky.” 

“And you have terrible taste in food.” 

“I’m not putting a pound of garlic in it, either.”

“I’m revoking the gift.” James declared. “Until you learn to cook properly.”

“You just don’t know how to recognize good food when you taste it.”

“I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“The same reason I put up with you, I think.” 

“What’s that?” James asked.

“Because I’m cute.”

“I…” James paused, thought about that for a second and his face flooded with red again. “Shut up. Stop talking.” 

Ron laughed, which apparently counted as talking. He didn’t really mind that James made him sit quietly on his calves for the rest of the afternoon. 

Because all afternoon, James kept looking over at him and pretending not to smile.


	18. Negative Attention is Still Attention

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering I tagged this story with BDSM, there is remarkably little of the sex end of that. So have a chapter that addresses that lack.

“James.”

“Shhh.”

“It’s dark out.”

“I know; light the lamps.”

“I did.”

“Good, now be quiet.”

Ron didn’t want to be quiet. “You’ve been working for thirteen hours.” He said, rubbing James’s shoulders, which were stiff as stone. “You barely ate all day.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“Ron.” James scowled, looked up from the pile of books he was studying for the first time in hours. “You were supposed to bug me to make me work, not bug me to make me stop working.” 

“I know, but James, you’ve been working all day, and you worked all day yesterday, and the day before. I know you want to get everything done, but you’re allowed to take breaks.” James had been working himself to near-exhaustion for days and it was starting to worry Ron.

James looked at him for a second before shaking his head. “If I just get it finished, then I won’t have to do it anymore.” 

“And what’s the good in that if you kill yourself getting it done?”

“Stop being so melodramatic.” James said, sighing. “I’m fine.” And he went back to the book, which was full of detailed illustrations of various organs. 

Ron scowled down at him, not that James could see. James wasn’t fine. “What are you working on right now?”

“Jezebel asked me to find out if there’s a better way to treat cancers than cutting them out.”

Ron knew that; he’d been there when it had happened. “Why can’t she find that out herself?”

“Because I’m the one from a clan of witches who specialize in herbal lore and I’m the one who can talk to plants.”

That was fair enough, Ron supposed. He sighed. “Ron, the faster you stop bothering me the faster I’ll get it done. Go find something to do until I’m finished reading this.” 

Ron scowled some more and wandered off, sitting on the floor just out of James’s line of sight. It wasn’t that James was ignoring him that was annoying Ron. It was that James was spending all of his time sitting at the table doing the various things that the Grand Coven had tasked him with and not moving. He was working too much and he was going to make himself sick. 

It was also a little bit that he’d been ignoring Ron. And Ron got that James was busy and important, but that was the closest thing to a proper conversation they’d had in days and he was getting sick of it. It wasn’t as though he wanted all of James’s attention all the time, but he did, he’d learned, want at least a reasonable amount of it at least sometimes. 

“Stop that.” James said vaguely, not looking up. Ron had been tapping his fingers against the floor as he thought. 

Ron stopped, but that, in his frustration, gave him an idea. It was stupid idea, and it was going to make James mad. But maybe, he thought, it would get his point across. Besides, James being mad at him meant he wouldn’t ignore Ron anymore, at least. Taking a breath, he scooted over a little bit so that he was just in James’s peripheral vision. 

Just getting the idea had made Ron half-hard, and it didn’t take him long to get himself the rest of the way there. Ron played with himself quietly, trying not to go too fast. It had been a while since he’d done this—or anything, since James had been so busy—and he didn’t necessarily want to finish, at least not right away.

“Stop doing that.” James told him from the table, not looking up. Despite the strong urge to pull his hands back, Ron didn’t, and he kept going, watching James as he did. “I said, stop, Ron.”

Ron continued, and resisted the urge to look away when James finally turned his head. “What are you doing?” 

“I think it’s…pretty obvious what I’m doing.” Ron said, his breath catching. 

“Yes, it is.” James stood from the chair, for the first time in hours. He put his hand on the table to steady himself. “And I told you to stop.”

“No.”

“Excuse me? What is wrong with you all of the sudden, Ron?”

“You’re ignoring me.” Ron said, trying not to sound sullen, but probably failing. “So I don’t see why I shouldn’t ignore you too.”

“You…” James stood there for a second with his mouth a little open, just watching Ron. He sighed, shook his head. And he took a step forward. “Fine.” He crouched down in front of Ron, grabbed his wrist. “Stop that right now.” He said, in low, dangerous tones.

“Or what?”

“Or…” James closed his eyes again. “Alright. Go in the bedroom, Ron. Right now.” He stood, pulled Ron to his feet. Ron did as he was bid, and James practically shoved him across the cabin and into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them. “Sit on the bed.” 

Ron did as he was told, still watching James. James just stood there and watched Ron back for a minute, annoyance still writ on his face. Ron resisted the urge to apologize. 

“There are rules.” He said, finally stepping forward. “And you broke one. You’ve always been such a good boy. I’ve never had to…to punish you before, Ron.” Ron shuddered, the urge to apologize coming back. Not at the threat of punishment—he’d expected that—but because he _was_ a good boy, he wanted James to know he was good, and he felt terrible for putting that in question. 

It was possible that Ron hadn’t quite realized how much he’d gotten into all of this until just now.

“What do you think?” James asked, stroking Ron’s cheek. He almost looked upset, now. 

“What?”

“I said, what do you think? You’re the one who broke the rules, Ron, and we’ve never done this before. What punishment do you think you deserve?” 

“I…” Ron’s breath caught. He hadn’t expected that. He should have, he realized now—their not-quite-spoken agreement was that James could do whatever he wanted, but he’d always had Ron define the boundaries of that. Probably, Ron reflected, that was why he’d felt confident enough to initiate this in the first place. 

“Ron, you’ve already tested my patience, please don’t do it again. I asked you a question.”

“Right. I…think…” Ron tried to think. He had broken the rules. What had he been expecting James to do when he’d decided to do that? “I’m not supposed to touch myself without permission.” He said, voice a little distant. “So I guess I can’t be allowed to cum.”

“Yes, that’s a good start.” James agreed, nodding patiently. “What else?”

“You should…” Ron shuddered a little. “I was being childish. You should spank me.” James hadn’t even done anything yet and Ron was already short of breath and too sensitive to touch. 

James didn’t say anything for a moment, considering. In the silence, Ron watched him, trying to keep calm and failing. “Okay.” James said finally. “That’s what I’ll do, then. But I’m also going to give you a time-out.” James straightened as Ron nodded his assent. “Stay here for just a second, I’ll be right back.” 

James left the bedroom and a moment later came back, with a winter scarf and a small tin in his hand. He knelt on the bed beside Ron, taking the lid off the tin and taking out a little curl of something green. “Do you recognize this?”

“It’s…is it chokevine?” 

“Yes.” James said, smiling at it. “I magicked it not to die after I cut it. I had been planning on using it for something like this anyway.” He held it out in question and Ron leaned back, to give James access. James smiled at him and gently wrapped the chokevine around the base of his dick. “There’s part one.” He said. Ron squirmed a little as he was squeezed, trying not to whimper. He’d misbehaved, and he could take the punishment properly. 

“And this, too.” James said, holding up the scarf. For a moment Ron was sure James meant to bind his arms or legs, to tie him up, but he held it up to head level. “I did promise I’d blindfold you. If you still want me to.”

Ron looked at it for a moment, took a breath. And nodded. 

James leaned forward, tied the scarf around Ron’s head, covering his eyes. Ron bit his lip as the room went dark, trying not to whimper. “Okay.” James said, and Ron felt him move off the bed. “I’m giving you a time-out. Do you understand why?”

Ron tried to steady his breathing a little. “I…because…” Because he knew Ron wouldn’t like it, but James wasn’t mean. “Because I shouldn’t misbehave to get your attention.”

“That’s right.” James said, and he sighed. “I’m going to leave you in here by yourself for ten minutes. You’re going to sit here quietly and think about what you’ve done.” 

Shaking a little, Ron nodded. James leaned down at brushed his cheek, giving him a light kiss on the ear before whispering, “I’m going to be right outside the door. It’s okay if you can’t do it; just yell.”

“Okay.” Ron nodded. “I can do it. I can.” It was funny, he thought, how James could do that, and yet it still felt real. 

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t think you could.” James pulled back. “Ten minutes.” And Ron heard him move, the door open and close, and James was gone. 

Ten minutes wasn’t that long, Ron told himself. It wasn’t that big a deal. He shifted around on the bed, trying not to let his erection touch any other part of himself and failing. It kept rubbing against his belly or his leg or the bed or something, and reminded him that he needed to cum. It had only been a few seconds, he could last. Besides, he’d asked for that. He deserved it.

Ron had never had a particular problem with being alone. It was nice, sometimes, not to have to talk to people or anything, and he’d often been alone before he’d left home. But this was different. Probably because it was punishment, a result of something he knew he’d done wrong. Or maybe it was just because it was James who’d left him alone. Who’d left him. 

He hadn’t gone far; he was just on the other side of the door. Ron could call his name right now and he’d come into the room. But that wasn’t the point. That wasn’t what it was about. Ron wasn’t entirely sure what it _was_ about, but it wasn’t distance. James was gone, and had left him here, and that was what mattered.

And he felt alone. Without James here he was alone, by himself and isolated. Nobody to help him. Nobody to take care of him. Did Ron need someone to take care of him? He never had before he’d met James. But he did now. 

It was only ten minutes. Ten minutes wasn’t that long. But how long had it been? Ron didn’t know. He’d gotten stuck in his head and hadn’t been counting time. It felt like it had been a long time already, but it must not have been, because James hadn’t come back yet. James wouldn’t have lied about how much time he was going to be gone. He wouldn’t. 

Ron was supposed to be thinking about what he’d done, but he knew what he’d done. He’d broken the rules, acted immaturely because he wanted attention, but it was more than that. He’d disappointed James. He’d shown that he couldn’t be trusted, that a few days without supervision and he’d start acting out. And he’d…and he’d told James without words that he wasn’t doing a good enough job taking care of Ron. He’d hurt James’s feelings. 

_Not much longer._ Ron promised himself, it wasn’t much longer, it couldn’t be that much longer. At some point he’d drawn his knees up to his chest, hardness forgotten, and wrapped his arms around them, rocking back and forth a little for comfort. James was just on the other side of the door, it wasn’t that big a deal.

When he heard the door open, though, Ron’s head snapped right up, and he let out a gasp of relief. James came over and sat beside him on the bed, hands on Ron’s shoulders. Ron couldn’t see him through the scarf, but he could feel him, hear his breathing, smell him. “It’s been ten minutes.” James told him, sounding nervous. “You did a good job, Ron. Such a good job, are you okay?”

“I’m okay.” Ron said, trying to catch his breath. “I’m okay. It’s okay. I’m sorry, James I…”

“Shhh.” James said, pressing his finger to Ron’s lips. “Not yet. We’re not done yet. You can apologize to me after.”

“Okay.” Ron said. The spanking, he remembered, he’d asked James to spank him. He wanted to apologize, so badly. But he could wait. 

“You tell me if you’re not okay.” James said quietly, and Ron nodded as James manoeuvered him until Ron was laying over his lap. “I’ve never done this before.” James told Ron, and his voice was shaking almost imperceptibly. 

“You don’t…”

“Shh…it’s okay.” James said, resting his hand on Ron’s backside. Ron tried not to wriggle. “I think we probably both need to do this, Ron.” 

“I think so too.” Ron said quietly. James just rested his hand there for a moment before removing it, and Ron tried not to tense as he waited for it to fall. 

The first smack was harder than Ron expected and he gasped, squirming a little. James’s other hand was on his back, keeping him in place. His erection rubbed against James’s lap, almost painfully reminding him that it wanted attention. 

The second one was a little softer, on the other side. Ron made a little noise. James was right. He did need this. Not just for the sex—which was what he’d been thinking of when he’d asked—but because it was…something.

Reassuring, Ron thought as the third smack came down and be bucked with it. It was reassuring. James cared about him. He wouldn’t be taking the time to do this if he didn’t care. Even if he’d been busy, Ron still mattered to him. 

He’d promised to take care of Ron when they’d met. The fourth smack stung, and Ron cried a little. Ron wasn’t sure he’d understood before, but he did now. Taking care of him also meant this. It also meant punishing him when he needed it—because he knew Ron could do better. 

Ron cried out loud at the fifth strike. James was trusting him, he realized. Trusting him to know if it was too much, and to understand why they had to do this. 

And Ron, Ron trusted James _so much_ , and he’d never realized the depth of it until now. The sixth strike hit him harder than the ones before and Ron cried again. And he’d needed, maybe, this affirmation that James trusted him too. 

That Ron mattered to James as much as James mattered to Ron. The seventh hit fell and Ron gulped in a mouthful of air. Maybe James didn’t love Ron the way Ron loved him, but they did trust each other and that had always been more important. 

The eighth slap came and Ron just whimpered a little. James would stop if Ron asked him to, if Ron needed him to. That was important, he thought. James had never forced anything on him. Ron could have put a stop to everything whenever he wanted. 

He didn’t want to. The ninth spank was heavy, but Ron bore it quietly. James’s other hand left Ron’s back and Ron didn’t notice until it touched him underneath, groping at his cock, the base. Pulling that little bit of chokevine off. 

The tenth smack was almost gentle, and Ron came with a strained cry when it hit him, making a mess all over the front of James’s pants. 

“Shhh…” James said, running a hand down Ron’s back. “You’re done, that’s all.” 

“Thank you.” Ron whispered, shaking. “Thank you.” 

“Come here.” James reached down and undid the blindfold, and moved Ron until Ron was just about cradled in his lap. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m okay.” Ron promised. “I’m sorry, James. For misbehaving, and for hurting your feelings. I know…I know you don’t always have time for me. I just…” He’d kept it in this whole time, but now he started to cry. “I just wanted you to look at me for a few minutes. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

“No, it’s okay.” James kissed the top of Ron’s head, rocking him back and forth. “You did hurt my feelings a little. But you were right. I haven’t been taking care of you properly the last week or so. I promised I would and I’ve been ignoring you. I’m sorry.”

“I know you have important work to do.” Curing cancer was more important than Ron, he knew that. 

“I do.” James agreed. “But you’re important to me too. I won’t work all day anymore. I’ll take breaks. We’ll go for walks after lunch. And I’ll stop working at sundown and we can spend time together before bed. I know you were worried about me.”

“I was worried about you.” Ron said, feeling warm and floaty and safe. “But I was being selfish too. I just wanted you to pay attention to me for a while.”

“I know.” James kissed him again. “Don’t feel bad about wanting attention, Ron. You’re allowed to want things, even if they’re selfish. But next time you want something, don’t misbehave to get it, okay?”

“Okay.” Maybe if he’d just sat at the table and explained to James how he’d been feeling, things would have gotten better without this. Ron was happy with what had happened, though. 

“Good. Because if I have to punish you again, I’ll do it in a way you won’t like.” 

Ron nodded, smiling a little. He took that to mean no spanking. “A longer time-out.” He muttered. 

“Yes. And you definitely won’t cum at the end.”

“You didn’t need to do that.”

“You weren’t the only one who needed to apologize, Ron.” 

“Yes, I was.” 

“No.” James held Ron a little tighter. “Taking care of you doesn’t mean that I get to treat you poorly and there’s nothing you can do about it. That wouldn’t be fair. I promise to do a better job.”

“And I promise I’ll just tell you next time I have a problem.” Ron said, snuggling a little. “Instead of acting out.”

“Good.” James yawned. “I didn’t think I would like spanking you.”

“But you did?” 

“I did.”

“Me too.” Ron admitted. “Maybe we could do it again?”

“Maybe.” James said, stroking Ron’s hair now. “In a minute I’ll go get you a cream to put on so you’re not too sore in the morning.” 

“Thanks.” Ron liked the soreness, but he saw James’s point. “You take really good care of me, James, really.”

“Thank you.” James didn’t sound certain. “And you really are a good boy, Ron.” 

The smile that split Ron’s face was almost painful. “Thank you.” _I love you._

Ron had no trouble now accepting that a good boy was all he wanted to be. If he could be good for James, he would be happy.


	19. The Best Way to Insult Someone Is with Politeness

“What’s on this side of the river?”

“The forest.”

“Yes, but what else?” Ron asked. “You made a point of saying we were going to walk on this side of the river today, and it made me realize we’ve never done that before. What’s over here?” 

James smiled at him. “Nothing much. Sometimes I find herbs over here that aren’t on my side, but usually it’s pretty much the same.” 

“So…we never come here because it’s too much work?” To be fair, they had had to ford the river, which hadn’t been so bad—at least for Ron, who wasn’t now walking in wet pants and boots.

James shrugged. “The forest is bisected by the river. My family’s territory is on the other side. This side is centaur territory.” He paused. “The division is older than us, though. But I don’t often have any reason to come to this side.” 

James had mentioned that he expected they’d meet centaurs today, which was probably why he hadn’t repeated it. Ron probably should have put that together on his own. He looked around in the woods, but didn’t see anything untoward. “Then why are we here today? I thought you weren’t planning on bartering with them until later?” James had told Ron that in exchange for meat they’d hunted, James provided the centaurs with medicines that he’d mixed. That had been one of the things he’d been doing at the table for the last little while. 

“Because I like to remind them that I’m here every once in a while. This isn’t for the barter—though I do need to tell them I want one.” James said, glancing over at some herbs growing under a tree. “Since this is their territory, I don’t take anything from it without asking—as a courtesy. And they don’t hunt on our side of the river without asking. Supposedly.” 

“Are you…fighting?” Ron asked, wondering if he should be worried. But James hadn’t told him to bring his sword or anything, so it was probably okay. 

“No.” James smiled at him, patting his arm. “Don’t worry. We’re perfectly friendly with one another. We just don’t have much in common so we don’t see each other often. But if we hadn’t come here, in a week or so I suspect one of them would have come across to ask for permission to hunt.”

“Just to remind you that they’re still there.”

“Yes, that’s right.” 

Ron nodded, though he didn’t really get it. 

“Once we’ve got their permission to gather,” James said, pointing out another batch of that same herb to Ron, “I want some of that. It’s called Bloodless and I’ve been having a hard time finding any on our side of the river. Looks like they’ve got a lot of it, though.”

Ron nodded, trying to commit what it looked like to memory. “That’s kind of an ominous name.” 

“It clots blood. If you dry and crush it, you can mix it into a paste that’s good to stop bleeding. Obviously it’s also dangerous if you use it incorrectly. If you boil the leaves…stop walking, Ron.” 

Ron did as he was told, immediately stopping, though he had one foot in the air. To be safe he pulled it back and stood, looking around. “What?” 

“They’re here.” James said, gesturing a little ahead of them and to the right. Ron looked and sure enough, he could see a figure approaching from in between the trees, and now that it was closer, he could hear the thudding of hooves against the earth. 

The centaur came out from the trees gracefully, stepping onto the path in front of James, who had moved in front of Ron. He was bigger than the average horse for sure, and the part of him that James had told Ron it was offensive to think of as human reached about six feet. His hair was long and dark, his features flatter than human’s. Horse ears poked out from inside his hair. A longbow was across his back. He inclined his head at James. “The greetings of our clan upon you, wise one.” 

“And the greetings of mine to your wood, noble warrior.” James answered politely. Ron always found it a little funny when James was polite, but he kept quiet. The centaur wasn’t by himself. Another one, a lady centaur, was coming out from the woods now, and Ron was pretty sure he could see two more still hidden in the trees. If James noticed, he gave no sign. “I seek permission for my clan to share in the resources of your territory.”

The centaur looked at James for just a minute without answering, then he looked at Ron. “Is this one a member of your clan as well?”

“He is.” Ron smiled a little at that. 

“I do not believe I have seen him before. I was given to understand I had met all the surviving members of your clan, James.” 

“He’s new.” James smiled up at the centaur. “His name’s Ron.” 

The centaur apparently considered this information for a moment. “Very well. I grant you permission on behalf of my clan, wise one.”

“Thank you, Esteban.” James said, nodding. “Ron, this is Esteban, the son of clan’s chief. And his sister, Estelle.” 

“It’s nice to meet you.” Ron said, as politely as he could. Estelle smiled at him. 

Both centaurs were silent for a moment and James just stood there, vaguely smiling, until he seemed to remember something. “Ah, yes. You’ll want permission to hunt in my territory, of course.” Esteban nodded slowly. “Please do so with my permission and my blessing.” 

“We thank you for your generosity, wise one.” 

“I should also like to arrange a barter at your convenience, if you would be so kind as to convey that.”

“I shall inform my father.” Esteban said with a smile. “No doubt the whole clan shall rejoice.” 

“No rejoicing is necessary on my behalf, I assure you.”

“Nonsense—doubtless father will arrange a feast for you. And any of your clan who wish to come.”

“I shall extend the invitation.” James said, and Ron saw him holding back a sigh. “How is Chief Ezra this year?” 

“Hale as the day he first picked up a bow.” Esteban said, and Ron saw a flash of something on Estelle’s face. He wondered if she was going to say anything or if it was just her job to stand there quietly while her brother did the talking. “The clan looks forward to many more years of his leadership.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.” 

“And your clan, wise one? How fare your kin?”

“Well.” James informed them. “My cousins and aunt are healthy and my grandmother will outlive us all.”

Esteban laughed. “Of that I have no doubt. I remember when I was a boy and I made the mistake of questioning why she was visiting our village.” 

“Doubtless not a mistake you made twice.” James said with a smile. 

“Indeed not. I learned much from her in the two weeks my father had me in her service in apology.” Esteban looked up as if at a sound that Ron hadn’t heard, ears twitching. “I apologize, but I should take my leave. We are on a hunt.”

“Of course.” James said with a nod that might have passed as a narrow bow. “We shall endeavour to stay out of your way.” 

“I look forward to our barter, wise one.” Esteban returned the nod-bow before backing up and turning to head into the woods, gesturing for his sister to follow him. 

“A pleasure, wise one.” Estelle said, nodding at James as well before following off after him. 

James watched them go and Ron watched James. Only after a few minutes did he sigh. “There, that was easy.” He muttered, and waved Ron over to a tree to start collecting Bloodless. 

“He’s…” Ron trailed off. 

“A bit of a jerk, yes.” James nodded, rooting around through some bushes as he looked for anything else interesting. “Make sure you take those up by the roots.” 

Ron nodded, pulling them carefully. “Is he always like that?” 

“Sort of. He’s started to anticipate his father’s death, I think.”

“And he’ll be the clan chief.” 

“Yes.” James pulled his hands out of the bush and stood, looking around. “Were they as impressive as you expected?”

“They were pretty cool.” Ron admitted. 

“I’m glad you think so. Since we’re going to have to suffer through a six-hour banquet with them in a few weeks.”

“That seems…excessive.” 

“Yes. I should have invited them to one first, but I don’t want to throw a banquet.” James sighed, shaking his head. “Let’s go, but be careful. I see some fire shoots up there.” 

“Right.” Ron followed James deeper into the woods. 

They didn’t see any centaurs for the rest of the day, but Ron swore he could feel eyes on them until they crossed the river again.


	20. Milestones Need Not Always Be Celebrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of people have been waiting for this one. :)

“James.” 

“Hm?”

“You okay?”

“Mm-hm.” 

“James.” 

“What, Ron?”

“You’ve been sitting there staring at that page for half an hour.” Ron said, putting a hand on James’s shoulder. 

“Sorry.” James shook his head, smiling up at Ron. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. I just lost my concentration is all.”

“You’ve only been at the table for half an hour, though.” Ron added. He’d just finished washing the breakfast dishes and putting everything away. “Is something bothering you?” 

James had been a bit down the last few days in Ron’s estimation, but when he’d asked if James was okay before, he’d just gotten a smile and an assurance that nothing was wrong. But Ron wasn’t assured of that. It wasn’t like James to just space out like that. 

“No, not…” James trailed off. “I guess a little bit, yes. But it’s nothing you need to worry about.” 

“I’m already worrying about it, though.” Ron told him, gently. He didn’t want to make James feel bad. “I can tell something’s bothering you.” 

James looked at Ron for a minute, indecisive, before sighing. He pointed at the other chair and Ron sat. “It isn’t important. I don’t want you to make a big deal or…do anything about it, Ron.”

“Okay.” Ron wasn’t sure what James meant by that.

“I mean it. Take it as an order, or a rule or whatever you need to take it as to make you listen to me. It’s not…it’s not something you can fix, so I don’t want you to waste time trying.”

“Alright.” Ron nodded, frowning. “What is it?” 

“It’s just…” James hesitated, playing with the corner of the page of his book about rabbits. “Today’s my birthday.” 

“What?” Ron sat straighter, looking at James. “Why didn’t you say anything? I’d have…”

“That’s why.” James interrupted, holding up a hand. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I don’t want you to do anything. I can’t…I just don’t want a big deal made of it. Please, Ron.”

“O…okay.” Ron looked away. Obviously something had happened on James’s birthday to make him not like it. And James was right—without knowing what it was, there wasn’t anything Ron could do about that. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up anything that hurts.”

James smiled sadly, shook his head. “You didn’t. I was already thinking about it, like you saw. I’ll be okay in a few days. Don’t worry about me, okay?” 

_I always worry about you._ Ron thought but didn’t say. Instead he nodded. “Okay. You could take the day off if…”

“I’d rather work.” James said, looking down at the book for a moment. “It gives me something else to think about. Would you catch some fish for supper?” 

“Yeah, sure.” Ron stood, seeing that James didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I’ll do it now. Call me if you need anything.” 

“I will.” James promised. 

Ron smiled and, impulsively, reached down and gave James a hug. James was getting better at not freezing up before hugging back, though he still paused for a moment before reciprocating. “It’s…okay.” He said after a minute. “For you to be sad. Don’t feel like you can’t be sad because of me, okay?” 

James made a sound through his nose that might have been a laugh. “I don’t want to be sad when you’re here.” He said quietly, hugging Ron a little tighter. Ron was glad at that moment that James couldn’t see his face. “It’s just hard sometimes, is all.” He let go and Ron moved back. “Tell me when it’s your birthday.” James said, looking almost fondly at Ron. “We’ll celebrate then.”

“You don’t have to force yourself…”

“I’m not. And you’re allowed to be happy, Ron. Just because I’m sad doesn’t mean you have to be too.” Ron was always happy when he was with James, but before he could say that James went on. “I’ll make you a cake.”

“No, you won’t. You can’t bake.”

James paused, thought about that. “I’ll ask Julia to make you a cake.” He amended, looking away. “When is your birthday?”

“Mid-autumn.” 

“We missed it.” James muttered, smiling sadly at the table, not looking back up at Ron for a moment. He nodded as if to himself. “Okay. Go and catch the fish. Be careful of the chokevine in the river, Ron.”

“I will.” Ron promised, and he gave James one last look before departing the house. It was nice of James to say that Ron didn’t have to be sad too, but seeing James sad made Ron sad in return. Concealing a sigh, he grabbed his hat and a basket, closed the door and trotted out into the garden, noting that the jiggletufts were ripening on the way by. James would want to harvest the shaking seed pods before they exploded everywhere. 

Ron waded out into the cold river, shivering even as the sun beat down on him. It had really gotten hot quickly, and he’d stopped wearing James’s charm for the summer. Maybe he should have taken it with him so he didn’t freeze in the water. 

Going still so the fish wouldn’t flee him on principle, Ron took a deep breath. The first few times he’d done this he’d feared death by hypothermia before he would catch anything, but he’d gotten a lot better at it. In some ways he preferred it to regular fishing with a rod. It was less boring, for one. 

Ron’s concentration was entirely on the water, and he saw a fish headed in his direction and was poised to strike and grab it out of the water. “Hey, you.” 

Ron jumped, nearly losing his balance in the rushing water. The fish darted away and Ron looked up at the voice, which had come from to his right. 

Spike was fluttering in the air there, and came closer to Ron with a nervous glance across the river. “Hi.” Ron said after a second. “Uh, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

“No.” Spike shrugged, and landed on the arm that Ron had been holding outstretched to catch the fish. “Just wanted to check up on the kid. How’s he doing?” 

“He’s okay.” Ron assured him, since that was what James would say too. Deciding it was safe to assume that Spike knew what day it was, he continued, “He’s a little sad.”

“Well, yeah.” Spike nodded, looking a little upset himself. “I mean, I don’t get it—saying that today is the same day as a day that’s already happened, but if you accept the dubious human logic inherent in the idea, it makes sense why he’d be sad.”

“He says he’ll be okay in a few days.” Ron said carefully. Obviously Spike knew what was going on. 

“I wonder if he will.” Spike mused quietly. “I mean, would you be?”

Ron didn’t answer immediately. “I don’t know.” Was what he decided on as an answer. 

Spike looked up at him. “You don’t know if you’d be sad about five people dying on your birthday?” 

“I mean…” Ron hesitated, processing that. “I mean I don’t know what happened. James doesn’t like to talk about it and I don’t like to make him uncomfortable.” 

“Oh.” Spike frowned, and now he looked almost annoyed. “Why hasn’t he told you?”

“He doesn’t like to talk about it.” Ron repeated.

“Hm. You care a lot about him, don’t you?” 

Ron blinked, taken a bit aback by that. “Yes.” He said, nodding. “I do.” 

“I do too.” Spike lifted off from Ron’s arm, rising to buzz in front of Ron’s face with another glance over the river. 

“Are you going to go see him?” Ron asked. “I think he’d like that.” 

“Yeah, I am.” Spike smiled a little. “Good chat, Ron.” And he flitted off, over the garden and around the corner of the house, peering in all the windows as he went, obviously looking for the one James was closest to. 

Watching after him for a minute until he was out of sight, Ron sighed. Maybe James would be more willing to talk with Spike than with him, and that was okay. At least now he knew James wasn’t by himself in there. 

Ron went back to fishing, trying to become one with the river and all that bullshit as he focused on the fish again. Trying not to worry too much about James. A fish swam by and he grabbed for it. It darted away. 

Ron tried not to get frustrated while this happened several more times. Normally he was better at fishing than this. He was thinking too much, he knew, worrying about James and wondering what had happened to make five people die. Ron felt like he had half of the pieces of a puzzle, just enough to work out what the picture was without getting all the details—between that, and things that James had said about his family before now, and what he’d overheard about James’s mother at the meeting of the Grand Coven, it was clear that something awful had happened—probably, Ron thought, James’s mother had done something awful. He could understand why James didn’t want to talk about that, though a part of Ron wondered if James was worried about how he would react to the news—and a little upset that James might think that Ron would react badly.

He shook his head. Ron knew better than to stand here and start making up motivations for other people in his head. He wasn’t going to get upset over something that he’d decided James was thinking; that wasn’t fair. 

A fish came into Ron’s view and, without overthinking it, Ron snapped his hand into the water and plucked it from its path, came up with it wriggling in his hand. Carefully holding the fish with both hands, Ron smiled. “Sorry, buddy.” He said to it, carrying it out of the river and putting it in the basket while it flailed around in panic. “We’ve got to eat you today.”

Careful not to let his passenger escape, Ron carried the basket around the back of the house, to the tree stump where he cut firewood. There was a cleaver stuck in the wood there, and he got down on his knees and put the still-struggling fish on the stump, holding it in place and taking up the knife. “I’m pretty sure this doesn’t hurt.” He said, bringing the knife down and taking the fish’s head off in one strike. 

With a sigh, Ron went about deboning the now-headless fish, putting the head and bones and extra guts into the basket and carrying them all to the river, tossing them to be carried away by the stream. He washed out the basket and his front from the mess, and collected the meat to take into the house. 

Ron had definitely never appreciated how much work went into preparing food before he’d come to live here in the woods.

Taking the basket of fish around the house again, Ron hesitated at the front door. He didn’t want to interrupt James and Spike if they were talking. But at the same time, he couldn’t stand out here all day with a dead fish, so he compromised and knocked once on the door before opening it and going inside. “I think you’d feel better if you did, James.” Spike was saying from the table. Both of them looked up at Ron as he came in. 

“Sorry.” Ron said, noting that James looked close to tears. “I can wait outside…”

“No.” James took a deep breath, and stood. He nodded down at Spike, worrying at his lip. “Okay. I’ll try.” 

Spike flew up and brushed a hand against James’s cheek. “I’ll be okay, you’ll see.” He buzzed over to the open window and, with one last smile in James’s direction, went outside and left the two of them alone.

Ron watched him go, and watched James. He set the basket down on the table. “James…” 

“On my birthday five years ago, my parents tried to kill me.” James said, looking down at the floor at first, but bringing his eyes up to Ron at the end. “They killed my grandfather and my Uncle Joey and Aunt Delilah, and their baby, my cousin. And my brother and sister helped them and I…” James faltered, and started to cry. Ron moved forward, but James shook his head, holding out a hand. “My Uncle Timothy was helping them and when I ran from them, I found him. He was threatening to hurt Julia, so I killed him. And then me and Julia and grandma went to go…to go kill them. My parents. They ran away, and Johnathon and Kayla went with them. And I…I couldn’t stop them. I tried, Ron, but I couldn’t. And I didn’t know. They were like that and I didn’t know until that day. And if I’d known earlier maybe I could have stopped them but I didn’t. I don’t know how I was so stupid, but I…”

“Shhh..” Ron stepped forward, pushing James’s hand aside and wrapping arms around him tightly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that.” James cried, clinging to Ron in a way that he normally never would have.

“I’m so sorry.” Was all Ron could think to say. Even having assumed something awful had happened hadn’t prepared him for the truth of it. “I’m so sorry, James.” 

“I thought about going with them.” James whispered into Ron’s shoulder. “I thought really hard about it. Even after they tried to kill me, I still thought about it.”

“Of course you did.” Ron said, stroking the back of James’s neck. He couldn’t even imagine what that must have been like. He didn’t even know how James got out of bed in the morning, or afternoon as the case may be. “They’re your parents.” 

“I know, but…”

“You were just a kid.” Ron asserted. “I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to go with them. But you didn’t, and that…it must have been so hard, James.” 

James nodded, sniffing a little. “If we find them we have to kill them.” He said quietly. “But even now I wish I could bring them back. Make them the way they were. The way I remember them. But the way I remember them isn’t true, and I…” He broke off again, crying quietly. 

“It’s okay.” Ron said, rocking them back and forth. “I think that’s a normal thing to want.” 

“It’s um…it’s hard to talk about.” James said after a minute, and Ron heard him trying to get his breathing under control. “Which is why I don’t. But also…I should have told you before now, I wanted to. But I was too scared, of what you would think.”

“I know.” Ron nodded, holding back his own tears. “I know you were. I think that you must be so strong to be able to live your life every day after that, James. And even if you were scared, you still told me about it.” 

“I’m…” James broke off, hugged Ron tighter. “Thank you. I don’t deserve you.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Ron said quietly. _I love you._ He wanted to say it, he did. But it seemed so wrong right now. He didn’t want to add to everything James was already dealing with. 

James nodded again. He’d stopped crying now, at least. “Can you…can you hold me for a while longer, Ron?”

“Of course I can.” Ron answered, thoughts of doing anything else not even entering his mind. “As long as you want, James.” 

“Okay.” James said. “Okay. Can you…do one more thing for me, please?”

“I’ll do anything for you, James.” Ron meant that, meant it more than he’d meant anything ever in his life. 

“Would you…could you wish me a happy birthday?” He asked, in a very small voice. 

Ron hesitated, and shifted just a little so that he could look at James. Their eyes met and Ron smiled at James, leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. “Happy birthday, James.” 

James nodded, eyes watering again, and hugged Ron all the tighter, burying his face in Ron’s shoulder again. “Thank you.” He whispered. “Thank you, Ron.” 

They stood there for a long time like that, and Ron held James and let James hold on to him. It was the only birthday gift James asked him for.


	21. It's Hard when the One You Want to Yourself Has Other Friends

“So…”

“So what?”

“Are you…I’m trying to ask this without seeming rude.” 

“It’s not really working.”

“Are you just going to, you know, live here now?” Ron asked, watching Spike tear off pieces of a pear to eat. 

“Nah.” Spike waved a hand at Ron, talking with his mouth full. “Just visiting for a while.”

“Oh.” Ron tried not to let out a sigh of relief. Spike had been here since James’s birthday two weeks ago and hadn’t left. “Okay.” He returned his attention to the jiggletufts, which he was carefully twisting from the stem and putting in a heavy box on the ground. The bulbs fit neatly into his hand and were shaking with their jumping seeds inside. Soon they would break open and spread the seeds everywhere, which was why James wanted them locked in the box. 

“You that eager to get rid of me, kid?” 

“No, that’s not it!” Ron insisted. It wasn’t like he minded the faery being around. Or at least, he shouldn’t. It wasn’t like Spike was doing anything. “I was just curious.” 

“You just wish you had the privacy to bop with James all over the house.” 

“No!” Ron coloured, aggressively looking down at the box and reminding himself that he’d have to pick up jumping seeds if he broke one of the pods. “God. We’re not like that.” Most of them time they weren’t, at least. 

“Why not?” Spike asked, apparently with genuine curiosity. “Humans are too conservative about sex. You’re young and you love each other, you should be at each other all the time.” 

“W-what?” Ron asked, tripped up by that one word. “I don’t…”

“You don’t what?” 

“Nevermind.” Ron muttered, biting at his lip and harvesting the last of the seed pods, carefully putting it in the box before closing the lid. “You’ve known James for a long time.” He said as he latched it shut. 

“Do we have to go through the time thing again? But yes, I’ve known him since he was a baby. Why?” 

“Does he strike you as that kind of person? Who would spend his day…bopping?” 

Spike went quiet for a minute, considering. “No, I guess not. Though he didn’t strike me as the type to get with anyone, to be honest. I figured he’d end up being a hermit for the rest of his life.”

“Well, he didn’t really…get with me, so much as he just found me in his garden.” Ron said quietly. He didn’t like thinking about that part too much. It was summer, and they were coming on the one-year time limit James had put on their arrangement, and Ron didn’t know what was going to happen after that and thinking about it worried him a lot. He knew that James didn’t think the same thing about their relationship as he did. 

“Yeah, he told me the story. Point is, it was a bit of a shock when I found out he wasn’t a virgin anymore, since I thought he’d planned to die one. So good on both of you, I guess.” 

“Thanks?” Ron wasn’t sure if he was meant to take that as a compliment or not. He bent down and, with a grunt, lifted the box by its handles. Spike came down and sat on top of it, glancing at the river like he often did. “What’s over there?” Ron asked him. 

“Over where?” 

“You keep looking at the river like you’re worried about it.” Ron could feel himself starting to sweat in the heat as he made his way to the house. “Are you afraid of fish? Or centaurs?” 

“Don’t be dumb.” Spike muttered. “Nobody is afraid of centaurs and fish are just birds that live in water.”

“So what’s over there?” 

“Funny how you said James wasn’t the type to do a lot of sexing, but didn’t say anything about yourself.”

“I also didn’t say that we _never_ had sex.” Ron panted, pausing near the door. “You really don’t need to worry about my well-being.” 

“No, James does that, right?” 

“Yeah, he does.” And Ron didn’t have a problem admitting that. He put the box down in front of the door, stretching his shoulders for a minute. 

“Do you look out for his?” 

“Yes, I do.” Ron said, sighing and opening the door before bending down to pick up the box again. 

“Good. I’m glad.” Spike lifted off the box and flitted into the house, and by the time Ron got inside with the box, he was sitting on James’s stack of books on the table, watching James mix antivenom. 

James looked up at Ron and smiled as he came in, gesturing to a spot he’d cleared in the corner for the box. “Did Spike help at all?” 

“Not really.” Ron said, smiling a little.

“Do your own job.” Spike fluttered his wings indignantly. “I’m not the one indentured here.” 

“No, but you are staying here for free and eating our food.” Ron pointed out. 

“That’s because James and I are _friends._ ” Spike insisted. Ron found himself annoyed at the implication that he and James weren’t—or maybe he was just imagining that. 

“I thought it was because you insulted the king and got exiled.” James said, looking back down at his mixture. “Again.” 

“Rude.” Spike said, voice tight, turning and interesting shade of red. “All I said was that he’d be less of a tightass if he could get some, and I’m not exiled, I’m a diplomatic envoy.” He paused, looking away. “For the foreseeable future.” 

“He’s probably hoping the queen’s people will kidnap you.” James looked up at Ron. “The faery king and queen have been fighting for a long time. They’ve split the forest over it.” 

“Is that the division you mentioned?” Ron asked, groaning a little when he put the box down. Then he sat on it. “In the forest?”

“Partially, yes. The other part has to do with the magical presence in the land. Or presences; there are two. It’s complicated but I’ll try to explain it to you when I’m less busy.”

Ron nodded, not understanding but used to that. “What are they fighting about? The king and queen?” 

“It doesn’t even really matter at this point.” Spike sighed, tearing off some more pear. “Which is fine, since they won’t tell anyone and I’m pretty sure they don’t remember anyway.” 

“Anyway, Spike will be coming with us to the banquet to offer the formal request for continuation of their ceasefire.”

“Yeah, really James—can’t you hold the banquet here once in a while so they can come here instead of us having to go there?” 

“No.” James sighed, looking over at Ron again. “Are you okay?” He asked. “I know the box is heavy.”

“It’s not so bad.” Ron lied. “I’ll be okay.” 

“This coming from the one who bitched and complained about how heavy it was earlier.” Spike muttered. 

“Spike?” James asked, looking at his mixture again. “Would you go out and quickly grab me a deerflower? There should be some growing under the bridge.” 

Spike gave James a suspicious look, but he nodded, lifting up and leaving the pear behind. Ron tried not to be annoyed that James hadn’t asked him. “Sure thing, kid. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do while I’m gone.” 

“I’ll make an effort.” James deadpanned, and Spike nodded, leaving through the window with one last look back at the two of them. When he was gone, James stood from the chair, stretching, and came over to sit on the corner of the box. Ron made room for him. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, why?” 

“You don’t like Spike being here much.”

“Oh.” Ron coloured a little, looked away. “It’s not that. I like him just fine.” 

“You just don’t like him being here.” James repeated. 

“I just…I don’t know.” Ron sighed. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. I can ask him to leave and stay with Julia during his exile.” 

“No, you don’t need to…” Ron shook his head. “He’s your friend.” And Ron knew that Spike had been a big help to James while he dealt with having told Ron about his family and everything that had happened. 

“Do I need to make you tell me what’s wrong?” 

“That’s it, I think.” Ron admitted. “You can’t, while he’s here. I feel like he’s, I don’t know, interrupting, a little bit. It’s stupid, but…” Ron wanted James to himself, that was all. 

“No, it’s not.” James smiled, took Ron’s hand and kissed the knuckles. “We’ve been by ourselves for a long time. You miss having me to yourself.” 

“Yeah.” Ron nodded, the old thought that James might be reading his mind resurfacing. “Can’t exactly blow you under the table when he’s there. But it’s not just about sex.” He added quickly, because it wasn’t. “It’s just the whole thing, you know. You…haven’t been ordering me around as much.” 

James nodded now too, still holding Ron’s hand. “Did you want me to be?” 

“Kind of.” 

“I can.” James told him. “I just didn’t want to embarrass you in front of him is all.” 

“What…” Ron paused, biting at his lip. “What if I want you to?” 

“Then I can. Faeries are very liberal about sexuality. He won’t mind if you don’t.” 

“Maybe start a little slow?” Ron suggested. “I mean, it’s not like I want to do everything in front of him or anything, and I like sex but it’s not really about that. It’s just that…I don’t want to not, and that’s kind of what’s happened.” He felt like he was failing to articulate what he was feeling here, but Ron was trying, at least.

“I understand.” James nodded again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to neglect you again.”

“You didn’t!” Ron said quickly. “You’ve been paying me lots of attention, especially since you’ve been busy and had everything on your mind with your birthday and all that and I…I really appreciate how much time you spend on me, James.” Ron still didn’t understand how James was able to face every day, nevermind care as much about another person as he did for Ron. 

“Okay.” James kissed Ron’s hand again. “You…the time that you’ve been here is the happiest I’ve been since my parents left, Ron. If I had my way I’d spend all my time on you.”

“Me too.” Ron admitted quietly. _I love you._

“I just wish you’d get over this habit of not telling me when things are wrong. Contrary to what you still think, I can’t read your mind.” 

“I just…you deal with so much all the time, I don’t want to burden you with other stuff.”

“You’re not a burden.” James stood, pulling on Ron’s hand so he’d do the same. James leaned up and kissed Ron on the mouth now. “You matter a lot to me.” That made Ron’s stomach soar in a way it probably shouldn’t. 

“You matter a lot to me too.” _I love you, I love you._

“I’ll talk to Spike tonight.” James said, a light smile playing on his lips. “And explain to him what we’re normally like. So that he doesn’t think I’m abusing you when I start ordering you around while he’s here. He might give us a little privacy from time to time without me having to ask.” 

“He thinks you don’t like sex.”

“I’d never had the chance to like it until I met you.” James said, eliciting a small laugh. “Stop worrying, okay?”

“I’ll try.” Ron promised. “Thanks, James.” 

“Why don’t you sit beside me on the floor while I work?” James suggested, and Ron knew it wasn’t a suggestion. “I’d like you close, okay?” 

“Okay.” Ron said immediately, smiling. 

“Good boy.” And that just made Ron grin all the more. 

Spike didn’t comment on Ron’s new position when he came back with the deerflower, and if anything Ron thought he saw approval in the faery’s expression. Maybe it wasn’t as big a deal as he’d been thinking.


	22. The Best Thing to Do with Your Significant Other's Friends Is Befriend Them as Well

“You don’t have to come with me.”

“I want to.”

“Okay.”

“Do you not want me to watch?”

“No, it’s okay.” Ron rubbed his arm a little. “Just don’t feel like you have to.”

“I like watching you,” James told him, gathering up his book and preparing to go outside. It was nice out, Ron figured. It wouldn’t kill James to sit in the sun for a while instead of reading in here. 

He swore up and down that he was almost done with everything he was assigned from the Grand Coven. He just had to put together one more spell for, as James had put it, politely keeping mice out of fields, and then that would be it. Ron was looking forward to it. 

Holding his sword carefully, Ron waited for James to be ready, and then they went. James opened the door for Ron and Ron led them out into the heat, shielding his eyes briefly against the sudden glare of the sunlight. “It’s hot.”

“Of course it’s hot,” James told him, waving Ron over to the side of the house where his clay training partner waited. “In the summer, the sun is closer to the earth. It makes it hot.” 

“Really?” Ron hadn’t know that. 

“Yes.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”

“Six hundred years of astronomy thanks you for your support.” 

They rounded the house, and James was looking at Ron, but Ron was looking ahead and there was someone standing in the field. “James.”

James turned, looked where Ron was looking. Saw the centaur standing on the lawn. “Hm,” he said, looking supremely unimpressed. He held out his book and Ron took it automatically. James stepped forward. The centaur—it was Estelle—was watching them, but said nothing. “Good day,” James said after a moment. “To what do we owe the distinct pleasure of this visit, noble warrior?”

“I apologize for the intrusion, wise one.” Estelle seemed to bow a little as she answered. “I have come to offer to you the invitation of my clan to a formal barter, followed by a feast in your honour, four days hence.” 

James nodded, but even from behind him, Ron could see he was holding in a sigh. “My thanks to you and your clan for the gracious invitation. I will see you and yours in four days, in that case.” 

“We are most honoured to have your attendance, wise one.” Estelle bowed again. 

Seeming to relax a little, James cocked his head sideways at the centaur. “Now, why are you really here, Estelle? Surely someone of your status in the clan isn’t tasked with the mere delivering of messages? Last year your father sent two yearlings after me, if I remember correctly.” 

Estelle smiled a little, her ears twitching. “You are wise indeed, James.”

“So you and your family keep telling me.”

“I was wondering if I might beg of you a reading of my fortunes.” 

James paused for a moment. “Well, first of all there’s no need to beg for anything. You can just ask. But if it’s your future you want, you should head down that way and ask my aunt Julia.” He pointed off into the woods. “Or even one of my cousins. Divination has never been one of my strengths.” 

Estelle looked off where James was pointing. Ron thought she seemed nervous. “I would much prefer if you could do it, wise one. I haven’t much time before I must return to the clan.”

“I’d rather you asked without lying to me, Estelle.” 

Ron sympathized with the way that Estelle flinched. He would have done the same if James were talking to him that way. Looking guilty, ears flat against her head, Estelle managed to make Ron forget that she was four times James’s size in the way she stood. “Please accept my apologies. I am…uncertain of myself, and of my future. I would prefer my worries remain with somebody I know and trust.”

James was silent for a long moment, and then he nodded. “Very well. Wait here a moment, please.” He turned and rejoined Ron on the grass, worrying at his lip. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. 

“It’s not your fault.” Ron shook his head. James put a hand on Ron’s arm. “Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s worried about what’s going to happen after her father dies.”

Ron frowned, a pang of worry hitting him. “You don’t think Esteban will do something to her, do you?”

“I doubt it, but…” James trailed off, sighed again. “Go inside and get that pine box that you moved off the second shelf. I don’t know where you put it.”

“It’s in the cupboard beside where it was, on the top.” Ron nodded, though. “I’ll be back in a minute.” 

“Thank you.” James turned back and went to talk to Estelle, and Ron went in the house, setting the sword inside the door beside James’s walking stick and putting James’s book on the table. Sneaking glances out the window, he stood on a chair to take down the heavy box, nearly overbalancing as he got down but managing to catch himself. 

Ron didn’t actually know what was in this box, so he held it carefully in both hands as he went back out, bringing it to James, who was now sitting in the grass with Estelle. They both looked up when he approached, and James smiled at him. “Thank you, Ron,” he said, taking the box. “Would you mind waiting back there a bit? So Estelle can have some privacy?”

“Sure.” Ron had expected that, and he nodded, smiling quickly at Estelle before retreating to the little bridge that led to the house as James pulled some crystals and bags that probably contained herbs out of the box. 

He decided it would be rude to watch them so Ron busied himself with the trees. They were kind of pretty, in a green sort of way. Maybe he should go inside, or to the garden or something. 

“Hey.” There was a light feeling on his hand and Ron looked down to see Spike standing there. “What’s up? This is a weird place for you.”

“James is doing a divination for Estelle,” Ron told him. “He asked for some privacy?”

“Who’s Estelle?” Spike asked, flitting up to peer over Ron’s shoulder. “Oh,” was all he said, and he stayed there, looking, until Ron gently reached up and tugged on his leg to make him come down. “Hey, careful! Not all of us have bones made of steel, you know.”

“Sorry. But don’t spy on them, it’s rude.” 

“I’ll decide what’s rude.” Spike peered over Ron’s shoulder again, and Ron thought his ears looked a little red. “Why’s he doing a fortune for her, I wonder?”

“Because she asked.”

“I guess.” Spike sounded a little distant. “I wonder what he’s showing her.”

“If she wanted you to know, I’m sure she’d tell you.” Ron said, trying not to sigh in exasperation. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Spike shook his head, shifting to sit on Ron’s shoulder. “So…”

He didn’t follow that up with anything, forcing Ron to ask. “So?”

“I talked to James.”

“You talk to James a lot.” Ron wasn’t sure why he was being coy about this. He knew what Spike was getting at. 

“So do you, kid.” Spike shook his head, smiling almost fondly. “Look, I don’t give a shit what you guys do. You think you’re the first person I’ve met who gets off on being someone’s servant?”

Ron got a strange feeling in his stomach at that. “I don’t…” He stopped himself, not willing to lie. “Okay, thanks.” It was more than just that he got off on it, but Ron took Spike’s point. 

“Sorry if I was getting in your way before. If you ever need me to bug off, just say so.”

“No, it’s okay, really.” Ron coloured a little, leaning forward to stretch a bit. “I don’t mind you being around. You’re cool.” 

“Glad you think so.” Spike said, tone dripping with false sincerity. He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder again. “Seriously though, if you ever want to talk to someone about anything, I’m here. I’m great at life advice and shit.” 

Ron chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You’d better; I don’t plan to offer again.” Spike looked up at him. “One bit of unsolicited advice though. Talk about everything. Everything, all the time, together. It’s the only way to make sure you both stay safe. Got it?”

“Got it,” Ron promised, nodding. He’d already sort of gathered that on his own. “We already talk about everything anyway.”

“Good, keep it that way.” Spike flitted up into the air, one last glance in James and Estelle’s direction. “Come on, this divination shit always takes forever. I found a grove of wraithberries in the woods nearby. You can surprise him with them when he’s done.”

James happened to be running low on wraithberries, actually, but Ron supposed Spike knew that too. “I’ll go get the basket,” he said, standing. “Thanks, Spike.”

“Anytime, kid.” 

When they got back, James was done with Estelle and, seeing the basket, he gave Ron a smile so genuine that Ron couldn’t help but return it for the rest of the day.


	23. Some People Are Just Not Made for Parties

“Ron.”

“Yeah?”

“You need to drink something.”

“I am.”

“Not water.” 

Ron glanced at James, whose hand was on the tankard that had been put in front of him. He was trying his hardest not to look displeased. “I’m serious,” James said, glancing down the table. They were seated at a tall table at the front of the clearing in the centaurs’ village, which was made mostly from living wood carefully tended into the shapes of houses and other structures. It was pretty cool. 

“Why?” Ron glanced at the beer on the table, which he’d avoided for the whole night so far. He wanted to be alert if anything happened. 

“You’ll offend the centaurs if you don’t have at least a little bit.” James smiled apologetically. “Do you not like beer?”

“I like it okay,” Ron admitted, eyeing it. “I just, uh, didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Well, I’d rather you didn’t get smashed and pass out somewhere, but it’s fine. There’s no reason not to at least try to enjoy yourself.”

Ron must have made a face or something, because James raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Ron.”

“I’ll drink a little bit,” He promised. 

There was a glint of mischief in James’s eyes. “You’re worried about what you’ll do if you get drunk, aren’t you?” 

Ron thought about lying, but James would know. So he nodded. “A little.”

“Now I want to know why. What happened last time you drank?”

“I…” Ron looked around at all the centaurs. “Can I tell you later?” 

When they were alone, and when Ron found a way to tell James he’d spent the entire night in tears without looking too pathetic. 

“Okay. Just one cup if you’re worried, okay?” 

Ron nodded and pulled a tankard closer, pouring himself a cup of beer.

As he sipped at the beer, Ron looked around the banquet. The centaurs—there were a lot of them—were mostly engrossed in their conversations with each other, though quite frequently Ron saw glances thrown at their table, which wasn’t surprising. He and James were seated up here with Esteban and Estelle, and their aged father Ezra, who was on James’s left. He had a wiry strength about him, but he also was pallid in a way that Ron knew to associate with illness. 

Having spent the first half of the banquet drinking like a fish, Spike was now fluttering in erratic patterns in the air with the faeries from the queen’s clan. Ron couldn’t tell if they were trying to sleep with him or kill him. 

Maybe it was both. 

James had turned away from him and was having a murmured conversation with Ezra on his other side, leaving Ron with little to do but pick at the remnants of the food and wonder how much longer all of this was going to take. It was already very late, and there was no sign of the banquet dying down at all. Ron never knew what to do in huge crowds of people like this, and his usual strategy was to stick with the people he knew until it was time to go home.

But one of the people he knew was talking to Ezra and the other one was warming up for an orgy/funeral in the trees, leaving Ron a little adrift. 

Fortunately, the centaur beside him was friendly. He was a redheaded (red-furred? Ron wasn’t sure) young centaur named Miguel. He reminded Ron a little of his cousin in the earnest way he talked about places he’d never been and the things he wanted to do while he was still young.

Ron was only left to his own devices for a few minutes before Miguel finished talking to the centaur on his other side and turned his perpetual grin back on Ron. His face was all ruddy and his huge ears were drooping a little. He’d had way too much to drink, in Ron’s opinion, but didn’t show many signs of slowing down. “I was starting to think you were never going to loosen up!” he cheered, gesturing at the cup in Ron’s hand. 

Ron didn’t want to loosen up. “Just trying not to be disrespectful.”

Miguel snorted a laugh. “Being respectful is for kids,” he announced, taking a long drink and banging his tankard down on the table. “You know, I killed that deer you traded us for. Shot it right in the ear.”

“Really?” Ron wasn’t sure why this mattered, but he was being polite. “Well, thank you.”

“What did we get for it, do you know?” 

“Um, medicine, mostly.”

“Yeah, but like, specifically for that deer, you know? What was it worth? Like, a potion, or two, or five?”

“I’m not sure,” Ron admitted. All he knew was that James had put together a box of medicines and made Ron drag them all here on a sled. “James and your chief decided all that. I waited outside with everyone else.”

“I guess so.” Miguel sighed, got himself some more beer. “It’s not going to go that way next year, trust me. When Esteban’s in charge here, he’ll be more careful, actually count things and we’ll all know what we’re trading for what.” 

Ron glanced over at where Esteban had been sitting, found he’d gotten up and wasn’t there anymore. “Well, you know what you got, didn’t you? Does it matter if you don’t know all the exact details?” Ron thought it was a bit rude to suggest they didn’t—like Miguel was suggesting James had cheated the centaurs or something. 

“Well…I guess not,” Miguel admitted, drinking some more. Ron thought he should probably stop drinking. “But still.” He fell a little quiet, for which Ron was grateful. Ron gingerly took a drink of his own beer, willing himself not to get too inebriated from it. 

A moment later James stood up, a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Do you…”

“No, stay here.” James smiled at him and wandered off into the woods. Ron couldn’t help but watch him go, noting where he disappeared into the trees. 

“You worried about him?” Miguel asked, watching Ron. 

“Of course not.” Ron took another drink. “Nothing is going to happen to him.” His eyes wandered back to the table. Ezra had leaned to his other side and was talking to Estelle now.

Ron had a feeling that there was a lot going on here that he was missing. 

“Do you think she’s pretty?” Miguel asked Ron suddenly. 

“Who?”

“Estelle.”

“Oh.” Self-conscious now, Ron tried to look at her without being obvious. “Yeah, she is.” She was, and Ron wasn’t sure if his lack of any sort of interest in that was because she was a woman, because she was horse or because she wasn’t James.

“Yeah.” Miguel sighed, not hiding that he was watching her. “I’m going to marry her,” he said after a second. 

“Really?” Ron asked, and Miguel nodded. “Congratulations.”

Miguel drank some more. “Blood brother to the clan chief, going to be pretty important.” He was slurring his words a lot. “You’re lucky we’re buddies now, I got connections.” 

He sounded very solemn all of the sudden. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Miguel sighed heavily. “Think I drank too much.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m going to go to sleep.” Very slowly, Miguel got up from the table, staggering in a way that had Ron worrying for his safety, and made his way off somewhere. 

Now Ron was totally by himself at the table until James came back. Spike had disappeared into the trees, and though Ron could make out the occasional yelp from above, it was hard over the noise the centaurs were still making. They were starting to diminish in number though. Ron had long since given up worrying about how late it was. 

“I hope you are enjoying the fruits of my clan, young warrior.” 

Ron looked up and saw that the chief was looking down at him, and Estelle had now disappeared as well. “I am,” he assured Ezra. “Thank you for your generous hospitality, chief.” 

Ezra smiled at Ron. “You are most welcome. I admit to being curious about you, young warrior. It has been many a year since the wise ones have welcomed a new member to their clan.” 

“I’m…” Ron started to say that he wasn’t, but stopped himself. He didn’t want to cause any trouble for James if that was what he wanted the centaurs to think. “There were some, um, unusual circumstances.” 

Enra chuckled. “No doubt. It’s been my experience that young men always think their circumstances unusual.” He sounded a little tired saying that. “But maybe you are correct, maybe they are. I’m an old man, and it’s hard for old men to truly understand young men’s minds.”

Ron could tell when someone wasn’t really talking to him. “Are you alright, sir?”

“Yes, yes.” Ezra sighed, waved Ron’s question away. “Alas. I’m just old, that’s all. Do me a favour, young warrior.”

“Of course.” Ron wasn’t sure where this was going. Hopefully James wouldn’t mind. 

“Do a very good job of protecting the wise one.”

“What…” Ron sat up a little straighter, setting the cup down on the table and watching the chief. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t fear—he’s entirely safe with the clan as long as I’m the chief.” 

Ron went cold. “But if you happened not to be?”

“Who can say what will happen after we’ve passed?” Ezra asked, with another sigh. “It is extremely rude to speak ill of one’s kin, don’t you agree?”

Ron wasn’t sure whether or not he agreed with that, but he nodded. “I suppose so.” 

“Then best not to. I think enough harm has come to the wise one for one lifetime.”

“I agree,” Ron said, glancing off into the woods. On that point, he had no uncertainty.

“Loath though I know he is to do it, he might find it in his wisdom to offer to host the banquet next year.” 

Ron would convince him to do that. “I’ll look forward to seeing you there,” he said, before remembering that he probably wasn’t going to be there and falling a little quiet. 

Ezra smiled at him. “Of course, young warrior. I am glad we had a chance to talk tonight.”

“Me too, chief.” 

Just then James came out of the trees and smiled at Ron, heading over to join them at the table. He was clutching one hand into a fist and Ron saw blood between his fingers. “Are you okay?” Ron asked, making to grab the hand. “What happened?”

“Nothing, I’ll tell you later.” James brushed Ron’s cheek with a knuckle. “It’s okay, promise.”

“You’d tell me if it wasn’t, right?” Ron asked, still looking at the blood. What was in the woods that could have cut his hand like that?

“Of course.” James turned to Ezra. “Chief. I want to thank you and your clan for all of your hospitality this evening, but I’m afraid I’m terribly worn out. Would it be okay if I excused myself from your table for the night?”

“Of course, wise one.” Ezra nodded, standing himself. “We are of the same mind, it seems, as I thought to retire shortly as well. Leave the young to their revelry.” 

It was indeed only the younger centaurs who were still up and eating—mostly drinking, honestly. Ron supposed that probably wasn’t surprising. He didn’t feel like partying so he got up with James, who put a hand on his arm as they left the table. As they did, Ron saw Estelle emerge from the woods as well, but she didn’t come to rejoin the table, heading instead for one of the structures in the hamlet. 

“Goodnight, chief,” Ron said, as they moved.

“Goodnight, lad. Sleep well under my protections.”

“Thank you, chief,” James told him. “Goodnight.” 

“Sleep well, wise one.”

James led Ron away from the main table to a small area in the woods, a hut crafted from leaves and branches that weren’t cut. It was small and had clearly been put there just for them—or just for James, but there was room for both of them. “Where’s Spike?”

“Up there.” Ron pointed into the canopy. “Doing something I don’t want to know about with someone—a bunch of someones—he just met.”

“Good.” James nodded, getting down to his knees to crawl into the hut and motioning for Ron to follow. “I’m glad he’s happy.”

“Someone may as well enjoy the party.”

“Yes.” James sighed, and between the two of them they managed to get oriented in the hut. It was pretty comfortable, Ron supposed. “I’m not trying to be secretive. I’ll tell you what happened when we get home, okay?”

“That’s fine.” Ron nodded, holding James a little more tightly than was maybe normal. “Next year I want you to host the banquet.”

“Where’s that coming from?” He could hear James’s frown. 

“I was talking to the chief while you were gone. I’ll tell you when we get home.”

James snorted. “Okay. Thanks for looking out for me, Ron.”

“You’re welcome. Goodnight, James.” _I love you._

“Goodnight, Ron.” James kissed Ron on the cheek and, protected by promises, it wasn’t long before they fell asleep.


	24. Talking Problems out Is a Good Way to Solve Them

“Hm.”

“What?”

“I’m measuring the trees.”

“Why?”

“If I’m going to host a banquet next year I’m going to need a table.” James continued looking at the trees, obviously deciding which one would make the nicest table. “And also somewhere to put it since the yard isn’t big enough.”

“I don’t think you should host the banquet next year,” Ron said, from where he was sitting beside James, sharpening his sword.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a good idea for me to go to them again.” 

Ron had told James about the content of his conversation with Ezra the night of the banquet. “I don’t think you should have a banquet at all. Esteban could attack you just as easily here as he can in his territory.”

James, in turn, had told Ron about how he’d had a conversation with Esteban in the woods in which Esteban had suggested that James would want to show more deference for the centaurs once they had a new chief.

Before pulling a knife on James when James had suggested it was a little premature to assume he’d be chief. 

Ron had nearly run all the way back to the centaurs’ hamlet just to slit Esteban’s throat. 

“No, he can’t.” James shook his head, frowning now. “Not if he expects to survive. The land here is on my side.”

Ron frowned a little, running the whetstone up the length of the blade. “How does that work?”

“My clan has always lived in this part of the forest. It likes us. There’s power in the forest, and in the land here. Trying to attack me in my own yard would be…a bad idea.”

Ron paused, looking up at James. “Maybe it’s a good thing that I got trapped in that chokevine before I could try.” It was only very rarely that Ron remembered that he wasn’t the dangerous one here. 

“Well, I think so.” James patted Ron’s head. “It worked out really well.” 

“Yeah.” It had been a good year. The best one of Ron’s life, and that it was drawing to a close was something that Ron didn’t like to think about. 

“Somebody’s going to need to drag the tree back here to make into the table,” James said, nodding. 

“That…” Ron made a face. “Sounds like a lot of work. Can’t you magic it back?”

“That sounds like a lot of work for me, though.” James’s frown from earlier came back. 

“Let’s make Spike do it.”

“Agreed.”

They’d hardly seen Spike since the banquet. Ron was pretty sure he was still sleeping off his hangover. 

Ron went back to sharpening his sword and James was silent for a while, looking out at the forest, before sighing and sitting down. “I hate politics,” he grumbled.

“No kidding.”

“Do I get a big table to show that I’m open to as many centaurs as want to come, and risk that Esteban will come alone and make me look stupid? Or do I get a small one and risk that he’ll bring the whole clan and make me look inhospitable?” James had his eyes closed, face turned skywards. 

Ron put the whetstone down and covered James’s hand in his. “I don’t think you need to worry so much about it.”

“I’m frequently accused of leaving my problems to the last minute. I’d rather not do that this time.”

“Worrying about them a year in advance probably isn’t the answer, though,” Ron insisted. He didn’t like seeing James bothered by something stupid like this. 

He was making vague plans to go and pick a fight with the centaurs on his way out of the forest when his year was up and he had to leave. 

“I guess not.” James sighed again, smiled at Ron. “It’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

Ron interpreted that as _you won’t be here, it’s not your problem._

Pushing that aside, Ron said, “Why don’t you ask your grandmother how to magic tree roots into furniture? Then you can do it when they get here, have a table that’s the right size, and look impressive and magical.”

James frowned for a moment, blinking. “That’s a good idea.” Straightening a little, he appeared to consider that. “I think it’s probably really hard, especially since she makes her table out of a tree stump that’s always been there and it’s part of the magic of our family’s hold. But it should be possible. Hm. Yes, that’s a good idea, Ron.”

“Just trying to help.” It was always a little funny to him when James didn’t consider magical solutions to his problems. If Ron were a witch, he’d solve everything with magic. “And save Spike some work. This way he won’t have to drag a tree back here.”

James chuckled a little at that. “I’m sure he’ll be grateful.”

Ron’s hand was still covering James’s, and James moved his and laced their fingers together in the grass. “You know, um…”

“What?” James had just sort of trailed off. 

“Nevermind.” James shook his head. 

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing important.”

Ron had a feeling that wasn’t true, but he nodded. “If you’re sure. You can tell me if something else is bothering you.”

“I know, Ron. Nothing’s bothering me, promise.”

“Okay.” He wasn’t going to force James into talking about something he wasn’t ready to talk about. It would come out, whatever it was. Or maybe it really wasn’t important. 

It didn’t come up again, anyway, and they spent the rest of the afternoon sitting together, holding hands.


	25. Games Are the Most Fun When You Share in Making the Rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I can't resist following up fluff with some nice BDSM, so here that is.

“You suck.”

“Because you’re such an expert.”

“I’m not claiming to be. But even I can see that you’re getting your naked ass handed to you by a piece of mud. So I repeat—you suck.”

Ron rolled his eyes, picked up his sword and stood. His training partner held its sword up, preparing for a fight. “It’s made to be better than me. James made it that way so I’d get better.”

“Sure, kid.” But Spike looked between Ron and the dummy. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“It is working, actually.” Ron could feel himself improving. The mud dummy took advantage of every weakness he had, which forced him to be aware of those weaknesses and compensate for them. He’d learned, just in the last few hours, that he moved to the left instinctively when faced with too fierce a frontal assault—and now had enough bruises on his ribs to remind him not to do that. 

“Guess it’s one of those things that you learn by getting it wrong a bunch of times, huh?” Spike was hovering cross-legged in the air between Ron and the dummy, wings a blur. 

“Yeah, it’s trial and error.” Ron wiped at his forehead with the back of his arm. He was all sweaty—he’d have to take a swim in the river before going inside or James would be annoyed. “My dad taught me and my cousin the basics when we were kids, but after that he told us to just practice with each other, because that’s how you get better.”

“Huh,” Spike said. “I never figured you for being so dedicated.”

“Of course I am.” Swordfighting had always been one of the things Ron was good at, and it had been something to take his mind away when he needed to. 

“And yet here you are, about to get distracted.”

“What?”

In answer, Spike just nodded behind Ron, smiling.

Ron turned, saw James standing there, watching him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” James said, coming up to Ron. He looked nervous, and distracted. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I, um…” James hesitated. “I’d like you to come inside.”

“Sure,” Ron said, nodding. “Just let me wash up in the river, and I’ll be right…”

“Ron.” James interrupted, putting a hand on Ron’s wrist. He was red in the face as he pulled Ron into a hug, which made the hardness in his pants immediately apparent to Ron. “I want you to go inside. Right now.”

“Oh.” Feeling a little light-headed suddenly, Ron nodded. “Got it.”

“Good.” James pulled back, looking to the side for a second, before nodding to himself and turning on his heel to go back to the house.

“Oh, wow, look,” Spike said, looking out at the woods. “There’s something really interesting over there in the trees. I think I’ll go see what it is. For a few hours.”

“Let me know what you find,” Ron muttered, hurrying after James as Spike chuckled at him. 

Ron put his sword in the stand behind the door with James’s staff and the shovel and rake. By the time he’d closed the door behind him, he was already hard and James had disappeared into the bedroom. Ron followed after him. 

James was undressing when Ron entered the room, and he paused in taking off his shirt to point at the bed without a word. Ron crawled on and lay down, thinking that he was going to have to wash the sheets after.

There were some coils of rope on the bedside table, Ron noticed, which made him all the harder. 

“I was watching you out the window,” James said, tossing his shirt aside. He left his shorts on for now. “You looked all sweaty and hot and I…I thought if you were going to be sweaty and hot, you should do it in here, and it should be because of me.” James also looked sweaty and hot, and they hadn’t even done anything yet. 

“I can get behind that. “

“I want you to call me ‘sir,’” James said, and any nervousness he’d had outside was gone now. “Just for today. Is that okay?”

Ron nodded, watching James. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really seen him before, all of the sudden. 

“Words, Ron.”

“Yes, sir.”

James visibly reacted to that, a shudder in his shoulders, and if Ron needed any further reason to comply, that was it. “I’m going to tie you up.”

“I guessed.”

“Don’t get smart.”

Ron couldn’t help the grin that broke out on his face. If James kept talking to him like that, he was going to cum just from hearing his voice. “Sorry, sir.”

James climbed onto the bed and grabbed the rope, straddling Ron’s chest and lifting his arms. “Spike showed me how to do this,” he said as he took one of Ron’s arms and began tying it to the bedpost. Ron held still and let James do it, and when James was done his arm was securely tied there, but Ron noticed there was plenty of room in the loop of the knot, so he could easily move his hand if he had to. “Does that feel okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Ron moved his hand experimentally. It didn’t chafe any more than rope ought to. 

“Good. Tell me if it isn’t,” James ordered, taking Ron’s other hand to do the same there.

“Will do.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, James.”

“Okay.” James took a breath, finished tying the second rope and crawled off Ron, surveying his handiwork. “I wanted to use chokevine for this,” he said. “But I couldn’t figure out a way to do it without it being dangerous. Rope is safer.”

“I like rope.” That, Ron was quickly realizing, was very true. If anything, he thought there might not be enough rope.

“Good.” James turned away from the bed, came back with a little box. He paused before opening it, looking down at Ron. “I just want to watch you,” he said, running a hand down Ron’s chest, brushing over some of his bruises and watching Ron wince. “I could just keep you here all day, tied up like this and just watch you squirm.”

Ron was squirming, and he was trying not to, but it was _hard_. Especially with James’s fingers on him like that. 

“How long do you think it’d take before you start begging?” James asked, fingers coming to rest just frustratingly short of Ron’s erection. “For me to touch you?”

“Not long.” Ron knew that much. 

“Hm. You need to learn patience.” James removed his hand, opened the box. He came up with a small green pod. 

“Is that a jiggletuft pod?”

“Yes.” James nodded, looking down at it, and at Ron. “I saved a few. I covered them in a sort of wax and cast a spell on them so they’d stay alive without breaking open.” His gaze travelled up to Ron’s eyes. “I was thinking of putting it inside you. It’s not very big.”

Ron’s grin was maybe a little nervous now, but no weaker for that. “You’ve been planning this one.”

“For a while,” James confirmed. “I…I think a lot about you, tied up like this. Completely…at my mercy.”

“Me too,” Ron admitted, because he did. “You can put it in if you want to.”

James nodded, produced the oil from his pocket and poured it on both his hand and the pod. He inserted a finger into Ron, and then a second, eliciting a gasp. “If…”

“If it’s too much I’ll tell you right away,” Ron promised.

With his free hand, James gave Ron a light smack on the thigh. “Don’t interrupt.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“I’m sure you are.” James sighed, shaking his head. 

“Can you…” Ron hesitated, and James watched him patiently while he composed what he wanted to say. What he was feeling. “Can you be a bit mean? And call me ‘boy,’ or something like that? Something that makes me feel…”

“Small?”

“Weak,” Ron finished, looking up at James. “Now you’re interrupting.”

James smiled down at Ron. “I can interrupt you if I want, runt.” 

A shudder went through Ron at that, and he nodded his approval. Runt. He liked that. “Yes, sir,” he agreed. “You can.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you can’t stop me.” 

“No, sir.”

It didn’t matter that that wasn’t true. It didn’t matter that he could stop it. For a while, while they were doing this, they would go to a place where it was true, where Ron was powerless and totally in James’s care, and it was the knowledge that they would come back in the end that made it okay. 

“I’m putting this in now. Hold still,” James ordered, and Ron tried his best to do that. James put a hand on Ron’s belly to keep him from moving, and worked the narrow end of the pod inside him slowly, eyes on Ron’s face as he did.

It didn’t hurt, or it did a little, but it was a nice kind of sting that Ron was okay with. The pod widened out and got much thicker near the end, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle and after some coaxing by James, it went inside totally. Ron hoped that James had thought of a way to get it out afterwards.

But that errant thought was all the time Ron had to worry about it, because the pod was definitely still moving around even inside him, not stopping, and it wasn’t like anything James had put up there before. I just kept going, moving, seeming to mix up his insides, creating a pot of heat in Ron’s stomach, which built and built as if preparing to boil, and James was watching him, and his hand was on Ron’s belly, and he couldn’t move, and he wasn’t supposed to move, he had to keep still, James had told him to keep still, sir had told him to keep _still_.

“Fuck,” Ron whispered as he came without a touch, writhing a little as he shot three, four, five spurts onto his stomach and chest. 

And James’s hand, he realized when James pulled it away. He was looking down at Ron as if struck, flushed in the face and breathing fast. 

But he soon got himself under control. “I didn’t give you permission to do that,” he said.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ron panted, closing his eyes.

“Keep your eyes open, runt. You made a mess of my hand. Clean it up.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

James presented Ron with his hand, and Ron licked it clean, paying careful attention that he didn’t leave any behind. The whole time, James just watched him, breathing heavily. Still, the pod was jigging inside him, uncaring of Ron’s sensitivity. 

After a minute James pulled his hand away, wiping it on the bedsheets. “I think we need to have a talk about your attitude, runt.”

“I’m sorry,” Ron repeated. He was still hard. “It was an accident. I’m sorry, sir.”

“You keep saying that,” James said, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t think you really mean it.” 

“I do, I do. I’m sorry, sir, I really am.”

“Don’t whinge like that, it’s pathetic.” James sighed. “I was going to let you suck me off, but I’ve changed my mind now.”

Ron’s eyes went a little wide. He wanted that. He wanted to be able to do that for James. “Please, sir. Please let me. I promise I’ll be good.”

“It’s too late for that.”

No, no. Ron wriggled a little, eyes closing. “Please. I’m so sorry, sir.”

“Open your eyes and hold still, runt.”

Ron’s eyes snapped open. He was trying so hard not to move, he was. 

James sighed deeply, got up on his knees between Ron’s legs. He untied the rope keeping his shorts up and let them drop, exposing how hard he was. His head was all swollen and red, and Ron could see some fluid collected at the tip even from up here. “You don’t deserve this,” James told him. “But I care about you, a lot. You know that, right?”

Ron nodded. “Yes, sir. I know that.” He did.

“Good. If you take your punishment like a good boy I’ll let you have it, how does that sound?”

“That…that sounds fair, sir.” He wasn’t supposed to move or close his eyes, Ron reminded himself, even though he wanted to do both. The movement of the pod seemed to be getting harder. It did sound fair. He wanted James not to be annoyed with him anymore. He wanted to prove that he could be good. He was a good boy, he was. 

James nodded. “I thought so too.” He reached down and grabbed Ron’s still throbbing cock. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘too much of a good thing,’ runt?”

“Yes, sir.” Ron nodded, watching as James started to stroke him. He shivered even in the heat, feeling another orgasm coming on already. 

“That’s what we’re doing to give you. Since you came without permission, I think you’ll just keep doing that, until you’re sick of it and can’t take it anymore. Maybe then you’ll show a little more restraint next time, what do you think?”

“I…yes, sir.” Ron was shaking, corners of his mouth tugging into a smile. That…didn’t sound so bad. James was going easy on him. 

“Good.” James smiled, kept stroking Ron. “Keep count, will you? You’re already at one.”

It wasn’t long before Ron got there again, and called out a shuddering “two” as he splattered his chest again. 

That was when he realized he’d been very, very wrong. James wasn’t going easy on him—he kept going, through Ron’s orgasm and after, at the same pace. The pod inside him vibrating at the same pace. Both of them unheeding of Ron’s sensitive body that wanted at least a short break. It didn’t hurt—not yet—but he’d only done two and it was already so much, so intense, and how was he supposed keep going like this?

He’d earned this, Ron told himself. This was what he got. He could get through this. He could show James that he was a good boy. 

James was touching himself as he touched Ron, and Ron couldn’t help but watch him do that, insanely jealous of that hand, and when James tensed up and came, Ron let out a little sound of want that had nothing to do with the pressure on his own erection. 

“Don’t worry,” James said through thick breaths, smiling reassurance at Ron. He was so pretty. “By the time you’re done I’ll have another one in there for you.”

Ron nodded, even as he winced as a rush of pleasure shot through him, a rush of pain in its wake. There was another one a moment later, and then another, and they got closer and closer together until they were simultaneous, and Ron came again with a quiet cry. The cum collected on his chest was running down his sides in rivulets that were staining the bedsheets beneath him. 

“Count, runt.”

“Th-three,” Ron managed, even as James kept going. 

And kept going, and going, and Ron was panting his breaths, cum and sweat slicking his entire body, but he could take it, he was a good boy, but it hurt, but he was a _good boy_ , he could do it, he could….

“Four…” Ron cried as it came, hardly any emission this time. Tears ran down his face, making tracks through the sheen of sweat on his cheeks. He’d broken eye contact with James and was looking up at the ceiling now, just focusing on breathing and being a good boy. 

“Do you need me to stop?”

“I…” Ron was a good boy. “No.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you.”

It hurt, it did hurt, but not in a bad way, not yet. “I can do one more,” he promised, knowing James was trusting him not to lie. 

“Okay. You’re pretty when you cry, Ron. But it breaks my heart to watch you do it. One more, then you’re done.”

“I can do it,” Ron repeated. “I can do it, sir.” 

“Show me, runt.”

So Ron did, laying there panting as James kept touching him, as the pod kept vibrating, as shocks kept running through his body. He forgot about not moving and was writhing on the bed, arching his back and flexing his legs. James had moved beside him at some point and kept his free hand on Ron’s shoulder the whole time, comforting. 

It happened all at once, a jolt that was not at all pleasant but simultaneously _was_ , and Ron cried out loudly. “Ah! F-f-five…” He didn’t shoot anything this time, but the aftershocks of the orgasm stayed with him for what must have been several minutes, making him squirm. He couldn’t see anything with all the water in his eyes. 

With a sting, James took his hand off of Ron. “Good boy,” he said, stroking Ron’s hair as he brought his messy hand up to be cleaned. Ron licked it clean without a second thought, the cum and the sweat from James’s hand mixing into one salty mess, but he didn’t care. He was a good boy again, so he didn’t care. “Such a good boy, Ron. You did a good job.” 

“I’m sorry,” Ron whispered, closing his eyes for a minute. 

“I know. It’s okay. Do you still want this?”

Ron opened his eyes again and turned his head to see. James was still hard. 

Ron nodded.

James nodded back. “Okay. You’ve earned it.” His voice sounded so soft. It was the same voice, the same commanding tone he’d been using, but it seemed softer, nicer now. Caring. James got up, straddled Ron again, this time with his knees on either side of Ron’s neck, his hardness in Ron’s face. 

Ron opened his mouth, trying not to shiver in anticipation. 

James pushed in slowly, one hand on the headboard and the other on the top of Ron’s head—not holding him, just reminding him that he was there. He let out a little moan as he slid inside, as Ron desperately lapped at the head with his tongue, getting the last remnants of James’s previous cum, as he did as much as he could to gobble the whole thing down. James made a surprised little sound when he found himself buried to the hilt inside Ron, and Ron felt a surge of pride. 

“Oh, God,” James whispered, pulling out and thrusting back in, gently though, so gently. “Keep doing that. Keep doing that, runt. You’re really, you’re really…” Ron badly wanted to know what he was really, as he kept going, but James started to tense already. “I really, runt, Ron, I…” And he came, filling up Ron’s mouth in a few spurts, pulling out so the last spurt hit Ron’s cheek. Ron swallowed. 

James pulled away, sitting slumped on the bed beside Ron’s head. Both of them panting. Ron wanted to go to sleep. 

“God, you’re amazing,” James murmured, so quietly that Ron wondered if he was meant to hear it. “You’re so…” This was louder. “You’re so beautiful, Ron. This is perfect. This is what I wanted to see. I wanted you, all messed up, all sticky and sweaty, because of me, all because of me, only for me.”

“Only for you,” Ron promised. “It’s all for you.” He was pleasantly fuzzy now in that way that he liked. “Sir?”

“What is it?”

“Will you…” Ron took a moment to breathe. “Will you tell me I’m good? One more time, please?” He needed it, one more time. To be sure. 

James cocked a smile. He leaned down, moved Ron’s hair, plastered to his head, aside. And kissed Ron on the forehead. “You’re a good boy, Ron. My good boy.” 

Ron broke into a grin so wide it hurt his cheeks. “Thank you,” he said, still crying a little. 

“Okay.” James breathed, moving. He went down between Ron’s leg’s again and poked inside with his finger. He must have done a little magic, because the pod slid out after him, landing on the bedsheets, where it continued to jiggle around. James came back up and untied the first knot, and the second, and rubbed Ron’s wrists to make sure they were okay. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Ron promised. They were back now, in the real world. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” James smiled at him. “You’re the one who did all the work. You’re such a mess.”

“Just like you planned.”

“Just like I wanted.” James nodded. “Probably shouldn’t have given me what I wanted. Now I’m going to want it more often.”

“Well,” Ron chuckled. “That’s fine with me. I don’t know that I can handle this every day, but I’ll try if you want.”

“No, I think every day would be a bit much. At least for this.” James patted Ron’s head again, fondness in his eyes. “I’m going to go get a cloth to clean you up. Stay here for a minute, okay?”

“Okay.” Ron didn’t have the energy to move anyway. 

“I’ll be right back. Promise.”

James got up and left, leaving Ron to his warm fuzziness, floating there on the bed. After a moment he was back, with a cool cloth and a bowl of water. “Here,” he said, pressing it to Ron’s forehead before wiping all the sweat and cum from Ron’s face. “You’re overheated.”

“You too.”

“I’ll be fine. Drink some water.” James tilted a cup towards Ron, gently coaxing him to sip at the water. Then he went about wiping all the mess of Ron’s belly and chest, until he was clean and cool. 

“Thank you.”

“Was it too much?” James asked, setting the bowl aside and sitting beside Ron on the bed. “We did a little more than I planned.”

Ron reflected, tried to think about it. He was still really sore. “No, I think it was okay. Um…next time, can you tie my legs up too? You kept telling me not to move, but…it was too hard.”

“Okay. I can do that. What about the pod? Was that okay?”

Ron nodded. He wondered why James was sitting there instead of lying down with him, so he reached out and tugged James’s wrist until he got the hint and lay down to cuddle. Ron liked cuddling. “I liked it. It was…it was weird. But good.” 

“I wasn’t planning on keeping it in the whole time.” James said, shifting a little. “I was…I was actually planning on putting my dick in.”

Ron made a little noise, squirming at the very idea, a painful jolt in his own dick reminding him that now was a bad time. “I’d have liked that.”

“I forgot about it,” James admitted. “I got distracted just looking at you, and…and controlling you like that, and I forgot all about it.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Yes.” James nodded, grabbing hold of Ron’s hand. “This is really nice. I like this part.”

“Me too.” Ron smiled, squeezed James’s hand back. The room smelled like sweat and sex, even with the window open. It was so hot, but Ron didn’t mind. “I’m…I’m really tired, though.”

James nodded beside him. “Me too. Probably not as tired as you. Take a nap if you want.”

“Yeah.” Ron could feel his thoughts starting to float away a little now too. “James…did I do good? Was it okay?”

“You did amazing, Ron,” James assured him, brushing his cheek with a hand. “You were perfect.”

“That’s good.” Ron smiled. James sounded really happy. 

“Go to sleep, you’re tired.”

“I don’t want to, though. I want to stay here with you.”

“I’ll be here when you wake up, Ron,” James whispered. “Go to sleep.”

Ron nodded, that promise all he needed to take him safely away. “Okay.”

True to his word, James was still there beside Ron when he woke up later, holding his hand and watching over him.


	26. Rain Is Good for Trapping People Together and Making Them Talk

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Where did all this rain come from?”

“The sky.”

“I know that.” 

“Then why did you ask? Rain always comes from the sky, Ron. That’s how rain works.” 

“I know.” Ron frowned at James. They had been working in the garden when this downpour had driven them indoors. He hoped Spike wasn’t out there drowning in a leaf or something. “I just meant it wasn’t even cloudy half an hour ago.”

“Oh, that.” James shrugged, looking down at his sodden clothes with minor annoyance. “Thunderstorms often come in because of a change in air pressure, which means that there’s a lot of wind.”

That sounded pretty smart to Ron, so it was probably right. “How do you know all of this stuff?”

“Books.” 

“You don’t have a book about thunderstorms.”

“I have one about weather,” James said, a little defensive. 

Ron narrowed his eyes. “You knew this storm was coming, didn’t you?”

“I’m not very good at predicting the weather.” James paused, a little red around the ears. “But yes. The plants told me. I misjudged how quickly it would blow in.” He sighed, started working at getting out of his wet shirt. 

“You could just magic them dry,” Ron suggested, once again wondering why James didn’t ever think of that as a solution. 

“That’s a waste of power. I don’t want to use magic to solve every little problem in the world—that would make the earth mad.”

Ron nodded, though that didn’t make any sense. He helped James get the shirt over his head. “Is the earth alive like that? It gets mad when you do stupid shit?”

“Language. And no, but sort of. The earth isn’t sentient in the way that you and I are, but it’s a system, just like a body. And when you do stupid things with your body you get in trouble—it’s the same with the earth.”

“Huh.” Ron thought about that as he hung James’s shirt on the back of a chair. By the time he’d turned around, James had undone his shorts and let them fall to the ground, leaving himself naked. “I never thought about that before.”

“I can give you a book to read if you’d like to know more about it,” James offered, wandering over to the single bookshelf that was overflowing with all of the books that he had. Ron needed to build him a new one. But first he needed to learn how carpentry worked, and he wasn’t sure he had time to do that before the end of the summer. 

“I’d like that.” He wanted to know more about the things that James knew about. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me—you can always read any of the books that are here if you like. I just assumed you weren’t that interested.” 

“I’m not much of a reader,” Ron admitted, putting the shorts on the back of another chair. “I was never great at it as a kid. My mom was really strict about making sure that I learned. She said that…” He was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door, which was followed by the door opening without ceremony. 

“Fuck it, I’m not giving him the chance to leave us out here in the rain.” It was Jay, bursting into the house with Tana just behind him. Both were soaked through. “James, we’re coming in and we’re not asking, it’s fucking pouring out here, and…oh, hi.”

“Hello.” James sighed, shaking his head at the two of them. It was pretty clear to Ron that he was contemplating throwing them out in the rain. “Ron, could you make some tea while I go get dressed?”

“Sure.” Ron wasn’t that fussed about his own state of undress, which had become completely natural to him at this point, but he was a little annoyed with them for invading James’s privacy like that. James went into the bedroom and Ron filled the kettle. 

“We interrupt something?” Jay asked, showing some of his teeth at Ron. 

Tana smacked him. “Don’t be a jerk. Sorry for barging in, Ron.”

“It’s fine,” Ron told them, sticking the kettle in the fire. “I don’t blame you in this rain.”

“It’s a bit crazy.” Tana nodded, and she was eyeing Ron a little mischievously. “So…did we interrupt something?”

“We were talking about the weather.” Ron coloured a little, even though they hadn’t been doing anything. Why did everyone always assume that he and James were just about to jump into bed?

“Cute. Very domestic of you.”

“Well, I’m glad you approve.” 

“We do,” Jay told him. “We like you. We’ve been meaning to tell you that—we’ve decided you’re allowed to stay.” 

“Thanks?”

“Stop teasing Ron,” James said, coming back in the room. He had put on another pair of shorts—a dirty one—and was fitting a shirt over his head as he walked, bumping into the counter as he did. 

“We weren’t,” Tana protested. 

“Of course you were. That’s what you both always do.”

“You didn’t even hear us, did you?”

“I didn’t need to,” James muttered, fixing the shirt and sitting down at the table. “What are you two doing here?”

“Well.” Jay shrugged, taking another chair. “You never come visit us, so we thought we’d pull your weight on the family responsibilities front.”

“I never visit you because I don’t see the point in dropping in on people unannounced when they might have plans,” James grumbled, reaching up and patting Ron’s hand as Ron walked by. 

“Your plans involved talking about the weather naked,” Tana pointed out, moving James’s shirt to the coatrack so she could sit as well. “You’re obviously not that busy.”

“I might have had that planned for weeks. Maybe it was important to me.” 

“And there’s also such a thing as sending messages or using the focus to let us know you’d be coming,” Jay reminded him. 

“Which you didn’t do.”

“It’s called fairplay.” Jay pointed at James. “And you’d have come up with an excuse to get away from us if we did.”

James didn’t have an answer for that, obviously, as he just turned away and watched Ron prepare the tea. 

When it was ready, Ron poured it for the three of them and made to get out of the way, sitting at the table only when James pulled him into a chair and pushed the fourth teacup in front of him. “Tell me what you actually want,” he told his cousins. 

They looked at each other. “To spend time with you, strange as that may sound,” Tana said, but then she sighed. “But also we want to talk about the spells of protection.”

“What about them?” 

Ron had no idea what spells they were talking about, so he just kept quiet and drank some tea. 

“We think it’s a good idea to repower them, don’t you? We haven’t in a while and the world doesn’t get less dangerous. I hear there’s a would-be centaur chief who threatened you.” 

James frowned, pausing after his fourth spoon of sugar into his teacup. “Who told you about that?”

“Where do you think Spike goes when he’s not here?” Jay demanded. “And also—the fuck, James? You just weren’t going to tell anyone that the centaurs might have declared war on us?”

“They won’t declare war. Esteban’s just a jerk.”

“Who pulled a knife on you.”

“You also didn’t tell us you were going to the banquet,” Tana added. 

“I assumed you didn’t want to go.” 

“We didn’t—that’s not the point. What if something had happened to you?”

“I had Ron with me.” 

Suddenly both of them were looking at Ron, who wasn’t sure what to do. “Fine,” Tana conceded. “But I still think it’s a good idea to repower the spells. Just in case.”

James just sighed. 

Looking between the three of them, Ron asked, “What do they do? The spells?”

“They’re protection spells on our half of the forest, to make sure nothing hurts the clan.” Jay told him. “They’re always there, but they need to be maintained. Preferably by the person who cast half of them.”

James just made a little noise at that, looking away with his expression a bit distant. 

“Spike said he told you about his parents,” Jay went on. “It turned out afterwards that Aunt Jocelyn had corrupted the protection spells. James fixed them that night, all at once. And he won’ t tell anyone what he did, so none of us know how they work anymore.”

“Because I don’t know,” James said quietly, looking at the floor. 

“What?”

“I don’t know what I did. I don’t remember anything after they left. I passed out.”

A long silence fell at that. Ron took James’s hand and James squeezed it, still looking down. 

“You could have said that five years ago.”

James didn’t say anything. 

Ron looked over at them. “You can’t repower these spells without him?”

“We _could_ ,” Tana said, looking at James with a worried expression. “But it would be better if he helped.”

Ron nodded, turned back to James. “James. I think you should help them. It sounds pretty important that these protection spells work properly.” Ron wasn’t going to be here to protect James forever. 

James was silent for a long moment, before nodding. “Okay.”

“What, just like that?” Tana asked, frowning. “Just, okay?”

“I said I’d help,” James told her, finally looking up. “What else do you want?”

Jay was looking at Ron in a way that made Ron a little self conscious. “You’re a good influence on him. We should be nicer to you.”

“You should be nicer to him anyway,” James said, still holding Ron’s hand, which felt very nice. “Ron hasn’t done anything to deserve you being mean to him.”

“Neither have you,” Jay told James in a way that sounded pretty pointed to Ron. 

James looked away. “We’ll go out and cast the spells when the rain stops. It will take all afternoon.” He looked up at Ron, then at them, then sighed. “You can stay for supper after. Ron can make soup.” 

“Please marry him,” Tana said, looking right at Ron, who just coloured to the roots of his hair and started to splutter something incoherent. 

He was interrupted by a knock on the window, which he got up to open to let Spike in. “Damn, what’d we do to the damn sky to earn this round of cloud vomit?” he demanded, doing a little dance on the windowsill to dry off before looking up. “Hey, it’s my second and third favourite witches.”

“Oh, nice.” Jay crossed his arms. “See if I let you sleep in my hat ever again.”

“Just for that you get bumped down to fourth, kid.” 

They ended up having a very lively time waiting for the storm to pass. James was a lot less quiet than usual, and by the time the rain stopped he was even smiling at his cousins for real. He kept reaching out every few minutes and squeezing Ron’s hand for comfort, as if to remind himself that Ron was still there. 

Ron was still there.


	27. Bottling up Your Emotions Is not Healthy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some stuff in here that I think one or two people have been curious about.

“It’s nice and cold.”

“It’s a river.”

“It’s a cold river.”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so?” Ron asked, one foot in the river, watching James consider the water. “Aren’t you going to get in?” he asked, though he would have been perfectly happy had James decided to just stand there all day, naked, arms crossed, thinking. 

Maybe Ron should get in the water, though, before it got too obvious that he thinking that. 

James looked at him, and raised an eyebrow, looking down. It was already obvious what Ron was thinking. “Something on your mind, Ron?”

Ron smiled sheepishly. “Just that you’re pretty.”

James coloured, but he reached out and gave Ron a bit of a push to get him in the water. “No. I’m not letting you distract me today. You need a bath.” 

Stumbling, Ron managed to keep his footing and keep the basket with the soap, rags and scissors upright and afloat, kept secure by the short rope James had tied around Ron’s waist so it wouldn’t float off. “You saying I smell bad?”

“Yes.” Ron wasn’t sure why he’d expected James to flirt back. “And I probably do too. And you need a haircut, and you’re not worming your way out of it.”

“We bathe plenty often,” Ron protested. James made it sound like he always tried to get out of it. 

“And half the time you distract me.”

“Just looking at you distracts me.” Ron grinned. 

“Me too. Now get in the water.” 

Ron did as he was told, wading out into the river up to his waist. The basket bobbed in front of him. James followed after him a little more slowly. The water was very cold, even if it was nice that it was a break from the heat. 

“I’m going to cut your hair first,” James told him, and Ron nodded, reached into the basket for the scissors and passed them back to James, who was behind him. “Hold still.”

Ron did, and James used a tin cup to wet his hair, which definitely took the rest of the heat off Ron always forgot how cold the water got. 

“You know, if you don’t want to do this, I could do it myself,” Ron told James, as James combed out his hair. He’d done it himself the first few times he’d needed his hair cut. 

He’d been cutting his own hair for several years now. 

“Do you want to do it yourself?” James asked, him, pausing with his hand on Ron’s shoulder. He sounded uncertain.

“No,” Ron said quickly, because he didn’t, and because he liked having James do it for him. “Just saying you don’t have to.”

“I like doing it,” James said, resuming combing. When he finished, he handed the comb to Ron to put in the basket and raised the scissors. “It’s a way of taking care of you.”

Warm inside, Ron nodded, then froze when he realized what he was doing. 

“Don’t move your head.”

“Sorry.”

The only sounds for a while were snipping and the rush of the water. Ron watched his hair fall in the river and float away. “Do you like it?” he asked after several minutes. “Taking care of me?” It was something he’d been wondering for quite a while. 

James was silent for a minute. “Yes, I do,” he said softly, snipping some more hair. 

“Why?” Ron frowned. “I’m obnoxious and I take up so much of your time, and for no reason. If you didn’t have me here, you’d be able to…”

“Stop,” James told him, hand coming to rest firmly on Ron’s shoulder. “None of those things are true, Ron.”

Yes, they were. But Ron fell silent, let James to back to his hair. 

“Do you like it?” James asked, moving around to cut the front. 

“Yes.” Ron wished he could have not said that so immediately, but he felt it so immediately. “I really do.”

“Why? Isn’t it weird to be taken care of like this? You could do all of this yourself if you wanted.”

Did James want Ron to be doing all this himself? Well, their year was almost over. Maybe he was just trying to remind Ron that it was almost done. That he only had to put up with it for a few weeks longer. Ron didn’t want that, he wanted more than a few weeks, but he couldn’t change how time worked. 

“It’s nice,” he said after a minute. “To know that someone is looking out for me. And thinking about me. It’s nice that someone cares about me enough to make sure I’m taken care of.” 

James nodded, measuring Ron’s bangs with his fingers as he snipped. “That’s why I like it,” he said. “I like making you feel that way. I care about you and I want you to always know that.” 

Ron smiled at that, and it turned into a strange little noise as he bit his lip to stop his face from doing anything too weird. He kind of wanted to cry. James finished cutting his hair, putting the scissors in the basket. “It looks nice,” he said, hand on Ron’s cheek.

“Thank you.” Ron whispered, and despite himself he let some tears fall. 

“Ron.” James stepped into a hug, holding Ron firmly in the flow of the water, staying like that until he got himself under control. “Are you okay?”

Ron nodded. He didn’t want to leave. 

“You’ve never told me about your parents,” James said, quiet, still holding him. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just realized when you mentioned your mother the other day that you’d never said anything to me about them.”

Ron nodded again, loosening his grip on James. They broke apart, and James grabbed the soap and held it up, waiting for Ron to nod again before he started lathering Ron’s chest. 

“My parents, um. Well, there was nothing wrong with them. They were great, I loved them—I still do. My mom was really nice and always seemed happy. She was always taking care of us, me and my dad. She taught me how to read and told me stories and made sure I knew to be kind and help people when I could. My dad laughed all the time and carried me on his shoulders and taught me and my cousin how to use swords when we were old enough. They never fought in front of me.”

James finished with Ron’s chest, moving on to his arms, and reaching around to do Ron’s back. “I guess they did it when I wasn’t around. I don’t know, really. I just know that…one night me and Owen camped out in the woods because it was warm and when I came back the next morning, she wasn’t there. I asked my dad where she was, and all he said was that she’d left.”

“I’m sorry,” James told him quietly, moving the soap down to get Ron’s legs. 

Ron shook his head. It wasn’t anything compared to what James’s parents had put him through. “I think she ran off with another man. My dad…he didn’t take it well. I didn’t either, I guess. I kept asking dad what he’d done, what we’d done to make her leave, and he just…wouldn’t talk to me. I couldn’t get him to talk to me. So I stopped trying. And after a few weeks, he just got up one morning and went out to work in the fields like normal, and he just kept doing that, like normal. And someone had to take care of the house, so I did that, I just did that. I took care of him, and I took care of myself. And we never talked. And when we did, we were strangers. I’d cook meals and he wouldn’t say anything, half the time wouldn’t eat them. He’d go away on hunting trips without telling me. I went out to get supplies in the bigger markets, be gone for a week or two, without telling him. He never said anything. One time I apologized for being gone so long, and he told me not to worry about it; that he hadn’t noticed I’d been gone.” He could hear it, now that he was saying all this, Ron could hear the suffocating silence in his house, see his dad sitting in the chair by the fire, not paying any attention to Ron at all. 

“Ron…”

“He only ever talked about mom leaving once,” Ron interrupted, looking down at the water. “At least that I heard. He’d had a lot to drink. My aunt and uncle had come over for supper and Owen and I were outside talking, and I overheard him inside. He said that…the night mom left, he’d asked her to stay. And she’d asked him to give her a reason to stay. And he couldn’t. And that was when I realized that…I hadn’t given her a reason to stay either. I’d never done anything for her to make her want to stay with us. I’d never even…”

“Ron, you were a child,” James told him, taking Ron’s hand firmly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know.” Ron nodded, emotions oddly dull. “I know that. Now, anyway. Not as much when I was younger. About a year before I came here I was sitting at home and it was so quiet. I was in the room with my dad and it was so quiet, just like it always was. And I thought, you haven’t given me a reason to stay either. And so I left. I got up right then and I packed up my bag with him sitting right there and he didn’t say anything, and I stood in the doorway and I told him I was leaving, and he just…he looked up at me and he said ‘all right.’ And I left him there,” Ron sobbed. “Just like mom did.” 

James pulled Ron into a hug again, pressing Ron’s head into his shoulder. “Okay. I’m so sorry, Ron.”

“No, I’m sorry.” Ron shook his head. He’d barely thought about his dad since he’d left. He wasn’t sure why it was upsetting him so much now. “I’m sorry, it’s not nearly as bad as what your parents did to you, James. I shouldn’t even be…”

“No. It doesn’t work like that, Ron. Just because your dad didn’t try to kill you doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

“Okay.” Ron sniffed, letting James hold him. “I didn’t even care. Until right now, I never even cared that I’d left him all alone. Because he didn’t care about me. But…he probably did. He…he was hurting too, more than I was, probably. I should have tried to talk to him more, to do something…”

“You were a _child_ , Ron.”

“I didn’t try to help him. He needed help. And I left. I helped myself instead of helping him, but…he didn’t care that I left. Why didn’t he try to stop me from leaving?”

“I don’t know, Ron.” James patted the back of his head. “I don’t know why.”

“Neither of them cared. They didn’t. And I didn’t either. I’m the same as they are.”

“No, you aren’t,” James told him, pulling back and tilting Ron’s head up to look him in the eye. James was crying too. “No, you are not, Ron.”

“I am, though.” James didn’t understand.

“You’re _not_. My parents are monsters, Ron. And I’ve been worried for such a long time that I was a monster too because of that. We’re not responsible for the ways our parents taught us to be, Ron. We’re only responsible for who we are now. You care. You care about them, even now, I can tell. You aren’t like them, not at all.”

Hiccoughing from all the crying, Ron watched James’s eyes swim. And he nodded. “Okay.” If James said it, Ron could know it was true. “Okay, James. Thank you.”

“Thank you for telling me. You’ve never told anyone, have you?” Ron shook his head. “Not even your cousin, about how you were feeling?” 

“No. I didn’t want to make him feel bad.” 

“You have to stop pretending your problems don’t exist, Ron. Trust me, I did that for a long time—it doesn’t work.” 

“I know.” Ron did know that. He just didn’t think it was fair to burden other people with his crap. 

James nodded. “Good. Now get in the water and wash all the hair and soap off, and then we’re going to go inside and I’ll make lunch.”

“I can do it.”

“No, you can let me take care of you.” It was clear from James’s tone that that was final. “You’re not feeling well and you’re my responsibility. I’m going to take care of you, Ron.”

Tears coming back, Ron closed his eyes and nodded, so grateful, more than he’d been for anything. “Thank you. I’ll keep taking care of you too. Promise.”

“Promise.”

Ron did as he’d been told, and when James made him lunch he felt so much better even if it was full of ginger. It wasn’t until later that night that he started to worry again, about what would happen when he wasn’t James’s responsibility anymore.


	28. A Healthy Argument Now and Again Can Lead to Positive Changes in A Relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, big chapter.

“Do you know how to make wine?”

“No, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s not your fault.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know how to make it either.”

“Do you need to know how to make wine?”

James nodded, looking at the river, pruning shears held stationary in his hand while he considered. “I’m thinking about the banquet again.”

“James.”

“I know, I know. But the thing is, I do know that it takes time to make wine, or beer, though I like wine better. If I’m going to do it, I should start soon.”

“I could help you,” Ron said immediately. “We could do it together.”

James turned away from the river, smiling at Ron. “I’d like that.” 

“Me too.” Even if the banquet was going to happen after Ron left, he wanted help as much as he could. Maybe figuring out how to do it would take so long that Ron would have to delay leaving. 

“Are you sure you’re okay with that?” James asked. “I know you don’t like alcohol.”

“I don’t want to drink it, really,” Ron said, looking back down at the weeding. “I don’t mind helping you make it.”

“You never did tell me why.”

“I only ever got really drunk once,” Ron told him, because there was no reason not to tell James anymore. He didn’t need to keep secrets from James. “A few days after I passed training with that mercenary guild I was with. Some of the guys took me out drinking to celebrate.”

“Did something happen?”

“Not really. Turns out I’m a really emotional drunk. I spent the whole night crying. I don’t really remember why.” Try as he might, Ron couldn’t really remember much from that night. He’d been assured that there was no need to worry about it, though, and nobody in the guild had ever made him feel bad about it, which was nice. 

“So at the banquet, you were just worried you’d do that again?”

“Yes.” Ron nodded. “I was worried it would make you look bad. I should have told you before we got there, sorry.”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have had anything to drink.”

“You asked me to.”

“I know.” James was silent for a moment as he pruned the Ice Thorns. “But I shouldn’t have. And you should have said no if it bothered you that much.”

“It didn’t bother me enough to say no over. You weren’t asking me to drink like Spike, just to have one cup. It was fine.”

“Still…”

“James, it was okay,” Ron told him again. “Don’t worry about it.”

James nodded, looking down at the white plant. “You’ve never said no,” he said quietly. 

“What?”

“You’ve never said no to me, the entire time you’ve been here.” 

Ron was confused now. “Did you want me to?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“I just…I told you early on that you should say no any time I told you to do something you didn’t like.”

“Or anything that scared me, I remember.” Ron shook his head now. “You’ve never told me to do anything I really didn’t want. Not that badly.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Okay.”

“James, what’s the matter?” Ron had no idea where any of this was coming from. 

“I’m not sure, I just…” A long sigh. “Sometimes I worry that you’re just going along with what I want.” 

Ron blinked. “Well…I am, but that’s what I want too, James.”

“No, that’s…” James closed his eyes, the hand with the shears falling limply to his side. “Don’t you understand how that sounds, Ron? I didn’t give you a choice about being here. I didn’t give you a choice about not having clothes. I didn’t give you a choice about whether or not I could touch you.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Not really.” James shook his head. “I’m a lot more powerful than you. If you’d tried to resist I might have hurt you.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“You didn’t know that at the time.”

“Yes, I did, James.” Ron stood, came up beside James, who didn’t look at him. “I knew after five minutes that you weren’t going to hurt me. You’re too nice.” He’d known he could trust James after half a day. 

“Tell that to Jay and Tana’s father.” 

“James, that was different.”

“Except you can’t, because I killed him.” James brought the shears up, snipping at the plant too aggressively. Frost spread across the blades, melting immediately in the heat. 

“James.” Ron put his hand over James’s, stopping him from cutting any more. “You’ve never, ever, not once, given me any reason to be scared of you. I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”  
“Well, I’m not,” Ron said, a flash of annoyance crossing his mind now. “If I had been, I’d have tried to escape from you as soon as I could. I’d have killed you in your sleep, or something. Were you never worried that I’d try to do that?”

“Well…” James trailed off. Ron took the shears from him. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I knew I could trust you.”

“Me too,” Ron told him. “So why are you all of the sudden acting like you can’t?”

“I’m not.”

“Why do you think I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t like something? Why don’t you trust me to tell you the truth?”

“I…” James turned to face Ron now, eyes rimmed with red. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” Ron dropped the shears on the ground, pulled James into a hug, which for once James reciprocated without hesitation. “Can you tell me what’s bothering you, please? I can’t read your mind either.”

“I…” James sighed. “I don’t know. I was just worried that you didn’t really want to be here.”

Ron held James a little tighter. “I do. James, I do want to be here.”

“Not just because I’m making you?”

“You’re not making me. I’m here because I want to be.”

James nodded, and he pulled back, out of Ron’s hug. “You’re here because I own you for a year. A year’s almost up.”

Was that the real problem? Had James been worrying about the same thing as Ron this whole time? With a stone in his belly, Ron decided to take a chance. “What if I wanted to stay longer?”

James’s eyes widened a little, and he teared up again. “I’d let you.”

“Can I?”

“Of course you can.” James stepped forward and wrapped arms around Ron this time, pinning him. “Of course you can. You can stay as long as you want.” 

“Careful.” Ron sniffed, his own tears coming now. “You’ll never get rid of me if you make promises like that.”

“Good. Stay. Stay, Ron. Stay here.”

“I will, James. I…I love you, James.”

The entire world seemed to stop moving for a moment, then, the river, the wind, the air moving in and out of Ron’s lungs. Everything disappeared, everything shrunk to just him and James. James looked up at him, moonstruck. “Ron…I…”

“It’s okay.” He didn’t need to hear it back. Didn’t need to have it back. But he’d needed to say it. Finally, to say it. 

“I love you too.” 

In that instant, hearing those words, Ron felt more connected to James than he ever had. And all around them he could hear singing. “Ron?”

“Thank you,” Ron cried. 

“Thank you,” James told him, holding him tightly. “Thank you, Ron. I love you.”

“I love you too. James. I love you so much.” He was repeating himself, but that was all Ron could feel, all he could think about. “I love you.”

_I love you._


	29. Comfort and Safety Go Hand in Hand With Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sex after the huge declarations of the last chapter.

“Hey, James?”

“Yes?”

“Could we, um…”

“We could certainly um if you want, sure.” 

Ron coloured a little, but he snickered. “Sorry. Could we have sex?”

“Sure.” James looked up from the table, where he was knotting together some yarn into a band. “I was just thinking that too, actually.”

Ron nodded. He was standing at the counter, grinding up some herbs for James. “Glad I’m not the only one.”

“You rarely are. Are you hard right now?”

“I’m…getting there.” Ron glanced down at himself as he said that. 

“Me too. Finish doing that and then go sit on the bed with your eyes closed.” 

“Okay.” Ron nodded, and went back to grinding the herbs. “I love you,” he said, because he wanted to. 

“I love you too.”

That made Ron feel warm and light just like it always did, and he grinned to himself as he went back to work. There wasn’t much left to do, and after a few minutes he was nearly done. Suddenly James wrapped his arms around Ron from behind, hugging him and looking over his shoulder. “You’re taking a long time.” 

“I’m just about done,” Ron promised, showing James. 

“Okay, get finished, then.” James clearly had no intention of moving and he stood right there with his arms around Ron’s chest, clothed erection pressing into his backside, while he watched patiently. 

Or not-so-patiently. Ron took a breath and went back to grinding, and James’s hands wandered down a little, until one brushed the tip of Ron’s hardness. Then it moved farther, and James wrapped his hand around Ron and gave him a squeeze. “James…”

“Do your work, Ron. You’re almost done.” James’s breath was warm on his neck.

“O-okay.” Ron took a breath and went back to it. Every time he moved his hand, so did James, and it made it harder and harder to concentrate as he went on. 

“Don’t go too fast,” James warned him, with a kiss on Ron’s neck. “You’re grinding them, not pulverising them.”

“Right, yeah…” Ron went more slowly, and so did James. Ron’s knees were shaking a bit as he worked, but James’s arm around his chest kept him steady. Some fluid started to collect on the head of Ron’s swollen erection, but James ignored it as Ron started to feel himself get closer and closer. 

“Okay,” James told him after another minute. He took his hand off of Ron and kissed him on the neck again. “That looks good. You’re done now.”

Ron nodded, trying to clear his head. “Okay.”

“Do you remember what you need to do when you’re done with this?”

“Go sit on the bed and wait for you with my eyes closed,” Ron repeated. 

“Good boy. Do as you’re told. I’ll put the herbs into the jar and be right there, okay?”

“Okay.” Ron nodded again, and when James released him, he turned and went into the bedroom, sitting on the bed facing the door. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes like James had told him to do. 

It was strange, but not being able to see made Ron lose all sense of time. He sat there for however long it took for James to finish up in the kitchen, hands on the sheets beside him, and he had no idea how long it was. It was probably only a few minutes, but it might well have been hours and he wouldn’t have known the difference. 

He wasn’t worried, though. He could hear James banging around in the kitchen, making more noise than normal probably just so Ron would hear him and know he was there, and he never felt like it was taking too long or like James wasn’t coming, because he’d said he was going to come in and Ron trusted him to do just that. 

After some indeterminate time the banging stopped and James’s footsteps drew towards the bedroom, and then Ron could hear James come into the room, hear his breathing as he approached, and he shivered when James ran a finger over one eye and down to his chin. “You’re so pretty. And so obedient.” 

Ron shuddered again. “I’ve learned that good things happen when I’m obedient.”

“Is that the only reason you are?”

“No.” Ron shook his head. “It’s because I like making you happy. And because it makes me happy too.”

“I’m glad. I like making you happy too, Ron.” James let his finger fall away, and his footsteps receded for a moment before the drawer of the bedside table opened. James came back, patted Ron on the head and then crawled up on to the bed beside him, moving behind Ron. 

Ron was trying to hold still even as he wanted to twitch in anticipation. A moment later James’s arms came around him from behind and a piece of fabric was pulled over his eyes. Ron held still and let James tie it without a word. “There, now you can open your eyes if you want.” 

“Thank you,” Ron said, and he did, though of course all he could see was the blackness of the scarf James had tied there. 

“Give me your hands.”

Ron did, presenting them behind his back. James took them and held them together.

“Are you going to tie me up?” Ron asked.

“Just a little bit,” James told him quietly, and a second later a loop of rope was wrapped around Ron’s wrist. “Unless you don’t want me to.”

“No, I like it,” Ron assured him. “I like it when you tie me up. That and the blindfold are my favourites.”

“I know.” James leaned in and kissed Ron on the back of the neck while he tied. “It’s because you like me controlling what you can see and touch, am I right?”

Ron hadn’t thought about it like that, but it was true. He nodded. 

“Words, Ron.”

“Yes, I think so.” Ron spat out quickly. “I like not having that control.” 

“I like having it,” James said, and Ron could tell he was smiling. “Maybe I’ll put earplugs in you sometime too. I bet you’ll like that.” 

Ron shivered a little at the thought. “I bet I will. You spend a lot of time thinking about what I like.”

“Of course I do. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Ron said, as his stomach started to fly. “Um. You liked the jiggletuft pod the best, didn’t you? And when you put the chokevine around me so I couldn’t cum.”

“Yes, those were my favourites, I think.”

“It’s because you like when I’m helpless, right? Watching me.”

James was silent for a second as he finished tying the knot. “Yes. I…like getting you to the point where you start to beg. It’s satisfying when you do.” 

Ron smirked a little. “I’ll have make that harder for you, then. Won’t be satisfying if it’s too easy.”

“Go ahead.” James tucked the loose end of the knot into Ron’s hand. “I like it when you try to be defiant, too. If you pull on that the knot will come undone. Pull on it if you need to.”

“Okay, I will.” Ron didn’t expect he would need to. But having the option was nice. 

“Good.” James hugged him from behind again, breathing on his neck. “You can cum whenever you want tonight.”

That was generous. “Thank you.” 

James just kissed Ron on the neck and moved away, getting off the bed. He padded in front of Ron, then leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, pulling back before Ron could reciprocate. “Every time I think you can’t get any prettier,” he said, hands on Ron’s chest. 

“I like to look my best, for you,” Ron told him, smiling. 

James chuckled, and his hands moved down Ron’s chest, down his thighs and to his knees. Ron heard a dull sound as James knelt on the floor in front of him, and pushed Ron’s legs apart. 

Ron wished he could see what was in front of him right now, so badly. The sight of James on his knees like that was doing terrible things just to his imagination, he had no doubt he’d cum on the spot if he could see it as well. “James…”

“See, this is why I don’t believe you when you say you’re going to make it hard for me. I haven’t even done anything yet and you’re already saying my name like that.” James’s voice was amused, his breath landing on Ron’s thigh. He could hear a bottle being uncorked. 

“Well I didn’t…say I was going to do that tonight,” Ron whispered, holding as still as he could while he waited for James. 

“Right, of course. I’ll look forward to defiant Ron in the future, then.” Ron could hear James smiling as he said that, and that was the last thing he said before he took Ron in his hand and, a second later, a wet heat covered the head of Ron’s dick as James pulled it into his mouth. 

“Oh, fuck, James.” Ron tensed up under the sensation, which stopped just as suddenly as it had started.

“Language, Ron.”

“S-sorry…” Ron managed, trying to catch his breath. 

“I suspect that isn’t true. I’ll be keeping track of how many times you swear tonight.” 

Oh, shit. “For…for what? What are you going to do?”

James just made a little humming noise and put his mouth back on Ron, leaving it to Ron’s imagination what he’d be doing with that information. As Ron lost the brainpower to imagine much beyond what was happening to him, James’s other hand, slick with oil, came up underneath and moved under Ron, urging him to lean back a bit. When Ron did, James pressed a finger inside him, slowly. 

“Ff….” Ron cut himself off. “James, God…”

James’s reply was to push himself down farther onto Ron, sucking lightly now while he worked his finger around inside. Ron couldn’t help his whimper, which turned into a long whinge as James kept sucking. 

He didn’t even notice James putting in a second finger until it was inside, pressing in and exploring with the first. “Sh-sh…fuck, James…” 

James gave one more hard suck all of the sudden and that was enough for Ron. “Fuck!” And he came into James’s mouth without meaning to, crying out as he did. 

James didn’t pull off of him, swallowing as Ron went. Ron didn’t know how much time passed before he was spent, but when he gained some level of awareness of his surroundings again, James was still on him, sucking gently on Ron’s sensitive dick. 

Ron let out a long sigh, trying to catch his breath, and James finally lifted his head up. “You okay?” he asked, voice a bit scratchy, fingers still inside Ron, not moving. 

“Yeah.” Ron nodded. “Thank you. That was…”

“I’m glad you liked it.” James wiggled his fingers inside Ron, and there was a third one pressing at the entrance now. 

“Are…are you going to…”

Ron trailed off when James pressed the third finger inside. “Am I going to what, Ron?” 

James knew what Ron meant. “Are you going to fuck me?”

“I wasn’t planning on putting it like that.” The finger slipped in, stretching Ron farther and he held back a little groan. “But yes. If you want.”

“I do.” Ron’s answer was immediate. 

“Good. Me too.” James paused, still working his fingers. “Lay back.”

Ron did, falling back onto his bound arms. The fingers left him all at once and he could hear the sound of clothes hitting the floor as James undressed. Then, with a hand on Ron’s belly, James was pressing against his entrance again. “Ready?”

“I’m ready.”

“Okay.” James let out a long breath, then pushed forward, penetrating Ron with a bit of a moan. “Oh, God. Ron.”

“James…” It was better, hotter and bigger and _more_ than the fingers had been, and it had Ron squirming immediately with the heat that was spreading through his body. 

James moved slowly at first, hands on Ron’s hips to steady them both, but suddenly he spasmed, pushed all the way in and letting out a loud gasp as Ron cried out in discomfort. James’s body tensed and he was shooting inside Ron already, painting his insides with heat. “S-sorry…” he said after a minute, while Ron lay there and just let the sensation of it flow over him. “It was…more than I expected.”

“It’s okay,” Ron told him. “Me too.” 

“I’m going to move, just give me a minute.” 

Ron did, and after that minute James took a deep breath, then pulled halfway out, before thrusting back in, his cum helping him go faster. “This is really…”

“Yeah…shit…” James thrust again, and Ron could feel his whole person wanting to curl around that. “Go…can you go faster?”

“Yes.” James did as Ron asked, pushing in and out with more speed now. One of his thrusts made contact with Ron’s prostate, and Ron arched his back, shouting with the pleasure that soared through his body. 

The bedroom was filled with grunting and panting and a lot of loud cries and moans as James found his rhythm and fucked Ron steadily, picking up speed as he went and getting better and better at hitting the right spot with those thrusts, until Ron was a gibbering mess. Just as he was thinking that he’d give anything in the world for a hand on his dick, James gave two hard thrusts, hitting Ron’s prostate both times, and Ron came with a loud shout of James’s name, splattering his cum all up himself as he did. 

“Ron!” James cried out as Ron shouted, hands tightening on Ron’s waist as he came inside Ron again, filling him up even more with his seed. 

When both of them were done, James pulled out and collapsed beside Ron on the bed. “Fuck.” Ron said, panting. “That was…fuck.”

“Language.”

“Sorry.”

“You will be,” James said vaguely, hand finding Ron’s head to undo the blindfold. Ron rolled over a little so that James could get to the knot at his wrists as well. “You can untie that.”

“I want you to do it,” Ron said, as the blindfold came off. “Feels more real if you do it.”

“Okay.” James reached down and tugged, freed Ron’s arms. He rubbed both wrists to make sure blood was flowing properly, and Ron moved onto his back and looked at James. He was flushed and sweaty, and had some cum on the corner of his mouth. His eyes were sparkling and bright, and the amount of love and care in them made Ron’s chest hurt. 

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Are you okay? Was that good?”

“It was really, really good, James. It was…it was really good.” 

James smiled, stroked Ron’s face. “For me too. Here.” He pulled them both up so they were laying properly on the bed, curled around each other. “Do you want to clean up now or in the morning?”

“In the morning,” Ron told him, pulling James closer to him. “I want to cuddle now.”

“You’re going to want to cuddle in the morning too.”

“And you’ll let me because you won’t want to get out of bed. So it’s win-win.” Ron grinned. 

James smiled back, touching Ron’s face again. “You’re so pretty.”

“Look who’s talking.”

James’s cheeks were already flushed with exertion, but Ron imagined a little bit more red there now. “Six.” 

“Swearing?” Ron asked, not wanting to close his eyes even as they felt heavy as all the adrenaline left him. 

“Yes.” James was smiling a little again. “That’s a lot of days you’re going to have to go without being allowed to cum.” 

Ron’s eyes snapped open and he jolted a bit. “Hold on.”

“I warned you.”

“You…” He had. Not swearing was one of the first things James had told him to do. It wasn’t like Ron hadn’t known, so he sagged a little, sighed. “Okay. I…don’t suppose I can convince you to shorten that with some serious begging?”

James chuckled a little, snuggling closer to Ron and closing his eyes. “Go three days and then show me how pretty you can beg, and we’ll see about shortening it to four. I hear a word about it before then and it’ll be ten days, though.”

“Got it,” Ron tried not to sigh. He’d brought it on himself. 

“Good boy,” James told him, petting his face again. “Don’t dwell on it. Just think about tonight for tonight, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Ron smiled. “Tonight was good. I liked tonight.” 

“Me too.” 

“We can have more nights like this.”

James nodded against Ron’s shoulder. “We can have as many as we want.”

“Good.” Ron yawned. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Go to sleep, you’re tired.” 

Ron nodded, but even as he did, he said, “I want to keep talking to you, though.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll be here in the morning.”

Ron knew that, he knew it as much as he knew anything, and it was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. “So will I.” 

“I know.” Ron could hear in James’s voice that he felt the same way. “We’ll still be here tomorrow. So go to sleep.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Ron.”


	30. Few Things Are as Dangerous as Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.

“James?”

“What is it?”

“My head’s itchy.”

“Where?”

“Right near your hand there.”

“Here?” James gave Ron a scratch with one finger. 

Ron nodded. “Thanks.”

“Stop moving.”

“Sorry.” 

“I’m almost done.” James reached down and grabbed another flower out of the pile he’d picked. He’d started sticking them into Ron’s hair a while ago because he was bored, but now he’d gotten very certain that he wanted it all to look a certain way, so Ron was sitting on the floor in between James’s legs, waiting for James to finish. He wondered what it looked like.

“I was thinking that tomorrow I should go out and start finding firewood for the winter,” Ron said while James worked. “I know it’s still summer, but it’s better to do it now so the wood can properly dry out before it starts to snow.”

“Okay.” James said, fingers working in Ron’s hair. “That’s a good idea. It is nearly autumn.” 

That idea didn’t fill Ron with the dread that it had used to, and he smiled at the realization. “We’ll need to start preserving vegetables.”

“And fish.” James sighed. “I was thinking we should visit Jay and Tana in the next few days. Just to stop them from coming here again.”

“You can just admit that you had fun last time.”

“No. I also want to visit Julia and my grandmother in the next little while.” 

“Look at you, finally leaving your house,” Ron teased.

“Maybe I’ll get you to carry me the whole way there,” James mused to himself, selecting another flower. 

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“If you told me to I would, and I wouldn’t mind, and then you’d spend the whole time feeling bad anyway.” 

James was quiet for a minute as he wove more flowers into Ron’s hair. “You win this round.”

Ron smirked. “Do I get a prize?”

“The prize is that you don’t have to carry me for five hours.”

“That seems like a good prize,” Ron admitted. 

“I’m glad you approve.” James looked up as Spike zipped in through the open window.

“Kid. James, Ron.” He sounded worried. James took his hands away from Ron’s hair, so Ron turned and looked at Spike as well, fluttering there, looking out of breath. It had never occurred to Ron that flying around must be just as tiring as running. 

“What’s the matter?” James asked. 

“There’re some people coming towards the house. Six of them. Armed.”

Ron straightened a little, and he started to stand. James did as well, putting a hand on Ron’s arm. “It’s probably nothing. But go get dressed.”

“Yeah.” Ron turned and made for the bedroom. 

“I’m not done—when I saw them, they were talking to each other about their plan for retrieving a stone from the witch they were looking for.” 

Ron froze, and James looked at Spike for a long minute, before averting his gaze to the floor, obviously thinking. He stood there for a long minute, mouth slightly open as he considered whatever he was considering. Ron put a hand on his shoulder. “James…”

James nodded. “Okay,” he said quietly. “It’s fine. This was going to happen someday. Get dressed and we’ll go outside to meet them when they get here.” 

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like something my mother would do.” James was tapping his foot. “I’m going to get dressed too. For appearances.” 

Ron nodded, and the two of them went into the bedroom, James stripping out of his clothes as he did and rummaging in his wardrobe for the black that Ron knew he didn’t like. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” James shot Ron a weak smile while he did up the buttons on his shirt. “It’s going to be okay.”

Ron nodded and laced his pants, his fingers fumbling a little. “Has this happened before?”

“No, but I knew there were people who wanted the stone. I’m supposed to protect it.”

“People like that Solomon guy the witches were talking about at the Grand Coven meeting?” Ron asked. 

“Yes. He killed a cabal of wizards about twenty years ago to get theirs, though it didn’t work. And I think my mother is working with him.”

“But you don’t think she sent these people?”

“It’s out of keeping. But we’ll find out when we talk to them, hopefully.” James sighed, brushed Ron’s cheek with his hand. “You’re very pretty like that. All dressed up with flowers in your hair.”

“Oh, I forgot about those.” Ron reached up and poked one, considered the effort of taking them out versus the effort James had gone through to get them there.

“Are they in your way?”

“No. I’ll leave them there.” Ron smiled. “I haven’t gotten to see them, yet.” 

“Okay.” James smiled too, stepped back. “I love you.”

“I love you too, James.”

“Let’s go outside.” 

Ron nodded, and he followed James out to where Spike was now pacing on the table irritably. “About time. They were on the way down the path to the house when I saw them. Man, you two look ready to take over the world.” 

“That sounds like too much work,” James told him, taking his staff out from the stand behind the door, and passing Ron’s sword to him. Ron put it on, wishing he’d practiced more with it lately. 

“I think the rest of us are bloody lucky you’re so lazy, kid.” Spike cocked his head at them. “Or maybe not. You’d make a good king of the world.” 

“Matter at hand, Spike.”

“Okay, okay. Just saying. Your boyfriend’s got a crown and everything.” 

While Ron flushed and self-consciously touched the flowers in his hair, James opened the door. “Come on.” 

“Right.” Ron followed him out, Spike zipping through the door after them and sitting on James’s shoulder. They walked to the little bridge that separated James’s house from the woods and James halted them there, looking unsure. “We’re not going to meet them?” Ron asked. 

“It’s just…” James looked around. “If we end up having to fight them I’d rather do it here.” 

“Where your power is.”

James nodded. “My power is all through the forest. But it’s strongest here. Or at my grandmother’s house, but that’s too far away.” 

“But you didn’t take the stone out of the drawer.” 

“If that’s what they’re after, I don’t see any reason to show them where it is,” James said, looking down the path. “Besides, I don’t think I’ll need it.”

“James is pretty powerful when he wants to be,” Spike said from James’s shoulder. “Like, a bit scary so even without the rock.”

“I think he meant that if there was a fight I’d be doing the fighting,” Ron said, watching James’s lips thin. 

“I meant both. Though I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to fight six people at once.” 

“Spike will help.”

“Oh, no. I’m a non-combatant of the highest order, here.”

“Good,” Ron said, stretching out his arms and hopping a little to get limber. “I’ll look all that much more impressive in the end, then.”

“When you’re bleeding to death because you tried to take on half a dozen people at once? Sure.”

“Shh.” James cut both of them off with a gesture, nodding up the road. Ron looked and a moment later, two people came around a bend in the road, a man and a woman. They saw James and Ron standing there, hesitated, and then continued their approach, beckoning others to follow. 

James looked at Ron and nodded up at them, so Ron took one step forward and waved. “Hello there!” he called. “Are you guys lost?”

The group stopped short on the other side of the bridge, three women and three men, hands near weapons but nothing drawn except for their archer’s bowstring, but she didn’t have an arrow nocked. A short-haired, blonde woman who looked only a little older than Ron stepped forward to speak. “I don’t think so. We’re looking for a witch.”

“Do you need help with something?”

“Something like that. We’re looking for something.”

Ron smiled. “You can’t have it.” 

“It’s important.” 

“I know. That’s why you can’t have it. Sorry.” Ron’s tone made it clear that he was not, in fact, sorry. 

“So you know what we’re here for.” The woman nodded, waved a hand at her people. They all drew weapons. “That makes this easier. Give us the stone. We don’t want to hurt you. But we will.”

“No,” James said, with a shake of his head. “You won’t. Go away.”

“There are six of us and two of you. The stone is worth a lot of money and it’s not like you’re using it, are you? Just give it to us.” 

Ron wanted to tell the woman that there were more than two of them, but he just drew his sword and stood there while James moved beside him. “Who hired you?” James asked the woman. 

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.” 

“You need to take a long look at your confidential employer, miss…”

“Beatrice.”

“Miss Beatrice. Nobody who wants these stones ever wants them for good reasons, and I’m sure whoever’s promised to pay you for this one is no different. Go away and find a safer line of work.”

“No, see…” Beatrice shook her head, smiling at them. “This doesn’t go how you think it goes, kiddo. You’re standing there thinking that your magic protects you from all of us, but you don’t realize that my friend Lillian here has already blocked that magic. So it’s just your flowery buddy here against all of us, and once Adrianna shoots you, he’ll be distracted keeping you alive until we find the stone. If we find it fast enough, we’ll heal you on the way out. Adi?”

“Ron.”

“James, move.” Ron was cold suddenly. 

The long-haired archer snapped an arrow out of her quiver faster than Ron could see and nocked it in instant, aiming it at James. “Ron, I…”

“Kid!”

“James!” Ron moved as Adrianna let loose her arrow, and shoved James aside with his shoulder, out of the path of the arrow.

And ended up in the path of the arrow himself, struck a few inches below his left shoulder.

It didn’t even hurt. The only reason Ron noticed was because he was pushed back and looked down instinctively to see why, and saw the arrow then. _When did that get there?_

He staggered back, deaf for just a moment. Until a scream like he’d never heard ripped through him, through the air, ripped through the world. Ron fell over, landing in a sitting position, looking up. The scream went on and on, way longer than it should have had the breath to do. It was coming from James, and from the forest. Everything was shaking and going dark, and the scream went on so long until it sounded like a song, a terrible, angry song that Ron was afraid to hear the end of. 

The ground was cracking under Beatrice and her people, lifting and falling and breaking apart and huge tree roots were growing out the broken earth, lashing out everywhere and getting bigger and bigger, curling around everything, tearing through everything. 

Ron felt a tug in his chest and looked down. Spike, ashen-faced, had landed on the arrow, which had disappeared into dust immediately. His tiny hands were on Ron’s chest, and Ron felt warm where Spike touched him. Ron’s head was feeling heavy and flower petals were falling everywhere, obscuring his vision. 

The air was vibrating with a palpable hatred, a toxic fear that rippled through everything in the world. And James was standing there, in the middle of it. He looked so sad. He looked so hurt. Ron didn’t want him to look hurt. 

With difficulty on the shaking ground, Ron got to his feet. Spike was yelling at him but Ron didn’t hear, batting him away as he went to James. He had to calm James down. He looked so scared. 

Ron coughed and spat up blood, but took two shaky steps towards James, putting a hand on his shoulder. It was like touching lightning, but Ron span James to face him while the forest kept tearing everything apart around them. “James. James, it’s me, it’s Ron. You’re okay. It’s okay.” He coughed again. 

James didn’t seem to hear him, tears streaming down his face, staring past Ron at something else, his mouth open but no sound coming out. But that wasn’t stopping the screaming. “James!” Ron shook him. And then pulled him close into a hug, putting James’s head onto his shoulder to block out whatever he was looking at. “James, it’s okay, I promise.” 

The shaking stopped. The screaming stopped, replaced by a loud silence. “Ron?” James asked, in a quiet, broken voice. 

“It’s me, you’re okay.” The whole world seemed to be frozen now, and the two of them were just there, floating in a rain of flower petals and quiet. 

“You’re…” James pulled back, stepping back from Ron, looking at his face, then down at his chest. “You’re hurt.”

Ron nodded. It did hurt, now that James said that, and he could feel blood staining his shirt. “Sorry,” he said, feeling faint. 

“No…” James shook his head, hand hovering over Ron’s chest as if to touch it. “No. Don’t. Don’t. You’re…it’s going to be okay.”

“I know.” Ron always knew that it was going to be okay, because James would always make sure it was. 

James put a hand on Ron’s chest, eyes fixed on the wound there, and a warmth similar to before spread out from the spot where Ron had been shot, emanating from James’s hand, until it filled Ron’s whole body. He could feel James, all through himself, Ron could feel James, and through James, Ron could feel something else, something bigger and stronger, and in the heat spreading through his body, Ron felt connected to that something else, and it was filling his ears with music. 

The heat filled him and kept coming, making him warmer and warmer, filling his veins with heat until Ron felt like he was about to burst into flame. “James…” Ron panted, breathing coming quickly as he felt himself burning. “James, stop, it hurts…” 

The music in Ron’s head swelled to a crescendo of heat, the two sensations blocking out everything but the vision of James in front of him, tears still streaming down his face, and even as Ron cried out in pain as the fire under his skin became excruciating, even as the world went black and Ron felt himself fading away and feeling nothing, all Ron could think was that he wanted to stop those tears from falling.


	31. People Who Are Afraid Make Bad Decisions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really am sorry.

“I’m sorry.”

_It’s okay._

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

_You didn’t._

“I swear I won’t do it again.”

_I’m okay, don’t worry about me._

“Please wake up, Ron.”

_What are you talking about?_

“I’m so sorry.”

Ron woke up with tears in his eyes and the sound of an apology in his head. He was warm, though he was laying in his and James’s bed, on top of the blankets. Maybe he was feverish, but Ron felt okay, if groggy. He could hear music somewhere, faintly. 

He was alone in the bed, which was strange. Sunlight was filtering in through the window, bright. It was at least midday. Usually it was James who overslept. He must have been more tired than he thought. What had they been doing last night that would have made him so tired? Ron couldn’t remember anything really out of the ordinary…

A twang of a bow, a flash of James’s crying face, the terrible sound of a scream. “James!” Ron sat up abruptly, head spinning a bit. He remembered now, they’d been attacked. He’d been shot. James had…

James had gone crazy. 

“Ron.” The voice beside him was quiet. Hesitant. 

James was sitting in a chair beside the bed, heavy bags under his eyes, rimmed with red. He’d clearly been crying and it looked like he was about to start again. “James, are you okay?” Ron asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, pulling him into a hug. He wondered why James hadn’t been in the bed with him. 

James flinched under the hug, in a way that he hadn’t for a long time. “Don’t…don’t ask me that! You’re the one…you’re the one who…”

“I’m sorry,” Ron whispered, holding James. “I wish I could have done a better job protecting you.”

“No!” James pushed Ron back, looking at him, incredulous. “You got hurt. You got _shot_. You almost _died_ , Ron.”

“Hey, hey.” Ron held out his hand, brushed James’s face. James pulled back, tears falling. “Stop crying. I’m okay. You healed me.”

James shook his head. “You…”

“It’s okay. Please stop crying. Everything’s okay now.”

“You didn’t wake up for thr-three days.” James sobbed, and it was a visible thing as he broke down, and Ron’s heart broke with him. 

“Three days?” It didn’t feel like that. It felt like he’d just woken up from a nap. Ron felt the world spin a little. 

James nodded, eyes squeezed shut. “You didn’t wake up. I tried, and I tried so hard to wake you up, Ron, and you just _wouldn’t_. I was…I was so worried that you were never going to wake up. I just…I can’t…” James hiccoughed. “It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, James. You did everything you could.” Ron still felt warm. 

Another shake of James’s head. “You don’t remember. You don’t remember what happened.”

“I remember getting shot, and then you were crying.” Ron tried to remember what had happened after that. “You were crying and I wanted you to stop. I hate it when you cry, James.” He hated it that James was crying now. It was making Ron cry too. “I got you to stop yelling, and then you put your hand on my chest…” Ron put his hand there now, found a faint discolouration of the skin, like the colour had been leeched from it. “It…it was hot.”

James shook his head. “You were bleeding. I thought you would die. I tried to help you. I tried…” He started crying again. 

“You did help me. I remember that now,” Ron could remember it vividly, the flower petals, the music, the burning, it had been so hot. “But…it burned. It was so hot I felt like I was on fire. I asked you to stop and…” 

James had always told Ron he would stop if Ron asked. 

“And you didn’t.” 

James nodded, stood up abruptly, knocking the chair over. He fled from the bedroom as Ron held out a hand. “James!”

It took Ron a moment longer to do that, his legs shaky as he stood. He needed to put a hand on the bedpost for a good minute before he was able to follow James out of the room. He wasn’t in the front room, but the door was open, and Ron went out into the garden. 

And blinked. Outside the house, where the ditch and the bridge had used to be, was….gone. A wall of tree roots blocked the rest of the forest from view. Most of them were thicker around than regular trees were, and they curled and twisted around each other, looking imposing and dangerous. “Oh, my God,” Ron whispered. “James, what did you do?”

“I got scared,” James’s voice said, drifting over from beside him. He was standing a few feet off, hugging himself as if he were the only thing in the world. He was looking at the wall of tree roots as if worried it might start moving. The garden was all overgrown as well, Ron saw, the plants spread all over the place, most of them as tall or taller than the house. The chokevine tendrils extended nearly to where James was standing, and they wrapped around everything in the garden. “I got mad. I was so mad. I wanted to kill them, to kill all of them, because they hurt you.” 

“You killed them all?” Ron asked, giving the wall another look. He felt a little sick. He didn’t mean to take that step, that step away from James, but he took it. 

“No.” James shook his head. “They escaped. Most of them escaped. I killed the one who shot you. And another one, he must have tried to help her. I killed him too. Julia found their bodies on her way in.”

“You didn’t do it on purpose,” Ron said. The way James was saying that made it clear he hadn’t known about the bodies until Julia had found them. “You were just scared, and angry. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It _was_ , and I _did_ , and I’d do it again!” All around James, the plants in the garden moved suddenly, growing. James looked away from him, down at the ground. “I’d do it again,” he repeated in a broken whisper. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Ron told him, taking a step forward. 

James looked up at him, eyes flashing. The plants were still moving, twisting. “Stay away from me.” 

Ron stopped moving, frozen in place by the hardness of that. He shook his head. “No.”

“I made up my mind,” James said, looking away. “I made up my mind while you were asleep.”

“James…”

“You have to go.” 

“Go where?” Ron asked, feeling like he wasn’t standing on solid ground anymore, like it was shaking and cracking underneath him like it had been before.

“I don’t…I don’t care. You have to leave, leave the house. Leave the forest. Leave me alone. You have to…”

“I’m not leaving, James!”

“You have to! I…I can’t have you here. I hurt you, I’ll hurt you again. I’m dangerous.” 

“No, you aren’t. And, no, James, you didn’t,” Ron told him, taking another step. James took one as well, back away from him, towards the writhing plants. “You didn’t hurt me.” James was hurting him now, and it was a physical pain that was spreading through Ron’s chest the more he saw that expression on James’s face. 

“Stupid…” James shook his head. “You don’t know what…”

“Then tell me…” Ron didn’t understand, he didn’t understand why James was doing this to him. To them, to either of them. Why was he doing this?

“I’m telling you that you have to leave. Just go.”

“James, I don’t understand…”

“I don’t want you here anymore!” James shouted, eyes shut against his tears, and Ron…

And now Ron knew what the end of the world sounded like. 

He took a step back, vision blurred with tears, James wavering in his sight. “I…” Ron couldn’t breathe. “What did I do wrong? Tell me what I did wrong, James. I’ll fix it, I promise.” He must have done something, Ron must have done something to upset James, to make him say that, to make him feel that. 

James was shaking his head. “There’s no fixing. You just need to go.”

Ron stood there for a long minute, watching James. He was breaking apart, breaking down, breaking. And watching James, Ron realized he was waiting for James to break too, but he didn’t. He just stood there, solid. Refusing to look at Ron. 

And Ron didn’t know what to say. 

“Three weeks,” he heard himself say. It sounded like a plea even to him. “I have three more weeks.”

“Ron…”

“In our agreement.” Ron felt his voice coming in stronger now, even with all the cracks. “One year. You told me one year, and there are three more weeks until the end of that year.” That mattered, it was important to Ron, it was there and it was real and he was clinging to it, and Ron wasn’t going to let go. 

“Don’t do that,” James pleaded, shaking his head. “Don’t do that to yourself, Ron. Don’t do it to me, please.” 

“No. You can’t make me leave before three weeks are up, James.” Ron was going to cling to that time like it was the only thing keeping him alive. “You can’t break the agreement, James. The…the forest wouldn’t like that.”

He wasn’t sure why he’d said that, but he knew it was true. He knew the forest would agree with him. 

And it must have, because, trembling, James folded in on himself. He looked like he hurt. Maybe his chest was hurting just like Ron’s was. 

“Fine,” James finally said, between tears. The plants around him had stopped moving. “Fine, you win. Three weeks. The last three weeks of your year, and then you leave.” 

“Fine.” It wasn’t fine, nothing was fine and it wasn’t going to be ever again. But that was all Ron could say. Almost all. “I love you.”

If James wanted him to leave, didn’t want him to be here, then Ron couldn’t stay. If James wanted him to go, then Ron was going to have to just…go. 

“Fine.” James nodded, and he started walking, hurrying past Ron without looking at him, going inside. The door shut behind him and Ron was left standing there in the overgrown garden, crying.

And alone.


	32. Relationships Stumble when Communication Breaks Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sorry.

“I’m going to go work in the garden,” Ron said. 

James didn’t answer him, didn’t look up from the table. He just nodded. He was reading one of his thicker books, which Ron had hardly ever seen him look at. He had two more on the table. 

Spellbooks. He was trying to figure out how to reverse what he’d done with the plants outside. He’d gone out and tried once or twice, and come back in visibly upset and frustrated.

He wouldn’t let Ron comfort him. He wouldn’t talk to Ron, or sleep in the bed with him or even touch him, just on the hand. He flinched away from all contact with Ron. 

“What do you want for supper?”

James sighed a little, shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.” 

Trying to reign in his annoyance, Ron turned away. “Fine.” He grabbed the gardening shears from the hook and went outside, not looking over at the wall of roots that blocked the house from the rest of the forest. There was a small hole, a small path through, but that was it. The little cabin was an impregnable fortress all of the sudden. 

Or a prison. James had been right. Asking for these last three weeks was just tormenting both of them every day. But Ron couldn’t, wouldn’t, let go of them. He still had time to change James’s mind, to make him see that he was okay, that everything was okay. That they could go back to being okay. 

But he didn’t know how. 

Ron went out into the garden, taking a breath as he looked it over. He’d been working on getting it under some semblance of control for a few days now. James had told him not to bother, that it was fine, but it wasn’t fine. It was all overgrown and shabby looking and Ron figured that if the plants were going to be huge now, he could at least make them look nice. 

Near the house there was a little basket that Ron had put together filled with sticks and twine, sitting on top of the stepstool that he needed to use to get to some of the bigger plants, with a larger bundle of sticks in a pile beside. He gathered those as well and went to the Sparrowbeak first, gently patting some of the large leaves. “Going to cut you back a little bit,” he told it, inspecting the plant. “Before you fall over.” 

The plant seemed to rustle in approval, and Ron smiled at it. “Think I’ll take off these two leaves so you don’t get too lopsided, and take a few inches off your top. Then we’ll give you some sticks to help you stay up.”

Ron recognized that he was so upset about James ignoring him that he was attributing reactions to the plants when he talked to them. What did it say that he was imagining the plants conversing with him when the actual person he lived with wouldn’t? 

Probably that Ron was too pathetic to handle what was happening and desperately trying to pretend that it wasn’t. But Ron didn’t care. He kept talking to the plant as he worked, because he needed to talk to someone or he’d go crazy. 

“Do they talk back?” 

Ron looked over his shoulder, saw Spike hovering there, looking worried. 

“Hey,” Ron said to him. “I was worried about you.” He hadn’t seen Spike since he’d woken up. James had told him Spike was okay, but that was all. 

“You were worried about me?” Spike snorted. “Typical. You almost die and you’re worried about me.”

“I was fine,” Ron told him. He was getting used to saying that. No matter how many times he said it to James, it didn’t seem to take root. 

“So was I. You did sprain my wrist when you smacked me.” Spike came over, sat on one of the Sparrowbeak leaves. Ron almost told him that those were poisonous to insects, but he decided that would be racist and Spike probably knew anyway. 

“Sorry.” Ron smiled down at him. “I was worried about James.”

“You should worry about Ron once in a while,” Spike said with a sigh. He shook his head, glanced at the house. “How is he?”

“He’s…he’s really upset still.” Ron went about tying some supporting sticks to the plant as he talked. 

Spike nodded. “I’m surprised that you’re out here if he’s upset. Shouldn’t you be in there making him less upset?”

Ron looked away, trying to control his face. He couldn’t quite control the way his knuckles tightened around the stick he had in his hand, though. “He doesn’t want me in there. He…he doesn’t want me around.”

“What? That’s definitely not true.” Spike lifted back up into the air, scowling at Ron. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Ron shook his head, willing himself not to cry as he steadied the Sparrowbeak. “I don’t know. When I woke up he…he told me he doesn’t want me here anymore. He’s making me leave in a couple of weeks.” That choked Ron up and his efforts not to cry failed. 

“Oh, fuck.” Spike zipped over, biting his lip. “He didn’t mean that. You know he didn’t mean it, kid. He’ll change his mind. Just talk to him, give him a little time to calm down.”

Ron shook his head. “I tried. I tried to talk to him. He won’t talk to me. He won’t even look at me. He…” Ron closed his eyes, let himself cry for a minute. “I don’t know what I did wrong,” he whispered. “I know I should have been more careful and not gotten hurt. I know I shouldn’t have scared him. But I was just trying to protect him. That’s what I thought I was supposed to do. He won’t tell me what I did wrong and I don’t know how to fix it.” How was Ron supposed to fix something when he didn’t know what it was?

“Oh, my God,” Spike said quietly, floating back a bit. “I’m going to kill him. He didn’t tell you what happened.”

“What?”

“Ron, you didn’t do anything wrong—he did.”

Ron shook his head, wiping at his tears. “No, he didn’t, no.” He waved out at the garden. “It was an accident, because he was scared for me. He was upset.” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Spike looked down, at Ron’s chest. Ron had been dressed the last few days, but he knew Spike was looking for the wound he no longer had, that discoloured patch of skin where James had healed him. “He went overboard trying to heal you. He overdosed you on healing magic. He almost killed you.”

“I don’t…” Ron shook his head again. “I don’t understand.” Healing magic wasn’t dangerous by definition, Ron thought. James wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. He wouldn’t. 

Ron had asked him to stop and he hadn’t.

“Anything can kill you if you get slammed with enough of it. James knew that, and he still slammed you with as much healing magic as he could.”

Ron was quiet for a second. “He was scared.”

“That’s not an excuse. He knew better, he almost killed you and now he’s punishing you for it.” Spike was glaring at everything now. “Little asshole. I’m going to go talk to him.”

“Don’t…”

“Good chat, Ron,” Spike said, and he zipped off, around the house. The kitchen window wasn’t open, but he didn’t come back, so Ron assumed James must have let him in.

Ron stood there in the garden, with the plants. _He almost killed you._

“It wasn’t his fault,” he muttered to the plants. “He was scared and he was trying to help me. It wasn’t his fault. It was an accident.”

It had been an accident. Which meant it hadn’t been Ron’s fault either. 

He wished that made him feel better.


	33. There Is Such a Thing as Being too Forgiving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sorry.

“Don’t take that tone with me, you stupid plant,” Ron muttered, as the chokevine curled around his wrist. “You’re too big.”

In response, the chokevine curled some more. Ron let it curl, and gathered up that vine as he went, taking in the excess, until he decided that was enough and reached up with the snippers in his other hand and cut the vine, letting it fall to the ground. 

Ron sighed, took the clipping and slowly backed away from the main plant, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t get caught in the chokevine again. If he did, he was worried that he’d be stuck there forever. 

Whatever Spike had said to James the other day hadn’t helped; he still wasn’t talking to Ron. If anything, it seemed to have made the problem worse—before when he’d tried to talk to James, James would just ignore him. Now he usually got up and left the room, blocking Ron out physically as well as emotionally. 

What the hell was Ron supposed to do with someone who that badly didn’t want him around? Break down the door and force James to talk? He couldn’t do that. 

So he was out here, in the garden, trying to get the chokevine under control. The rest of the plants he had a pretty good handle on at this point, and he’d harvested enough sap and leaves and seeds to last James a decade. But Ron’s archenemy had spread itself through the whole garden, and it was starting to wrap around the other plants too, so it needed to be cut back. 

He’d been at it two days and had managed to get it out of about a fourth of the garden. It was extremely tedious. At this rate it would be almost another whole week before he got the plant under control, and after that…

After that Ron would only have four days left. He had ten days left right now with James. And he was no closer to fixing what had happened than he had been ten days ago. Every time he thought about that his heart started to seize up, he started to have trouble breathing, trouble focusing. He had ten days left to convince James not to make him leave, and he still had no idea where to start.

Working in the garden was at least something he could control. 

“How strange it is to see you clothed.” 

Ron looked over his shoulder, saw Julia approaching him, skirts swirling in the light breeze. She smiled at Ron, but it was a sad smile. Ron tried to smile back and failed. “Hello.” 

“I came to check up on the two of you, see how it was going. I see the situation hasn’t improved.” 

Ron shook his head. The chokevine cutting squeezed his arm, and he let it. It took about a half hour for them to stop doing that. “No. He won’t talk to me.” 

“You don’t seem to be talking to him either,” Julia pointed out. 

Ron looked away, surveying the next bit of chokevine he planned to cut back. “I try. He goes into the bedroom and closes the door.” 

“And you come out here and let him do it?”

“What am I supposed to do, kick it in?”

“Are you that afraid of what he’ll do if you try?” Julia asked. 

Ron scowled at her, flexing his hand and letting the chokevine cutting squeeze him in response. “Of course not. I’m not afraid of James.”

“You should be.” 

Ron turned away. “He’s in the house if you want to talk to him. I’ll come in and start making supper in a little while if you’re staying.”

“My God, the two of you are made for each other,” Julia grumbled. “Neither of you can communicate worth a damn.” 

“If you want to talk I can listen. If you want to say things that are stupid, I have stuff to do.”

Julia sighed loudly. “He almost killed you, Ron.”

“I know. It was an accident.” Ron wondered how many times he was going to have to have this conversation. 

“James is an extremely competent and powerful witch. He should have known better than to let that happen. Did Spike tell you what he did?”

Ron made a face that Julia couldn’t see. “He went a little overboard on healing magic, he said.” 

“More than that. The healing spell he used was far too strong, yes, and because of that it wasn’t just healing power he was pouring into you—it was his own magic and the power of the earth itself, barely diluted.” 

Ron didn’t answer for a minute, resting his hand on one of the bulbs of the Owl’s Perch, which helped him calm down a little. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means he gave you direct access to something that only witches are supposed to be able to touch. It’s very dangerous—there’s a reason why ordinary people can’t use magic, because only some people can access that power without killing themselves. And James poured it right into your soul in his attempt to save your life.”

“Well, it worked,” Ron said, defensive. James had been scared, and he’d saved Ron’s life. 

“Yes, it did. Luckily. But there were a thousand things he could have done that were safer. What I’m telling you is that you need to stop excusing him—an accident it may have been, but the harm done to you _was_ James’s fault, and it _was_ preventable. Maybe the reason why he won’t talk to you is because you keep insisting that he didn’t do anything wrong when he knows he did, Ron.”

“That’s…” 

“Think of it this way—your current approach of getting him to change his mind isn’t working. You have to try something new eventually. I’m going to go inside and talk to him for a while, but ultimately you’re going to have to be the one to change his mind.” Julia’s footsteps started to recede “Oh, and Ron? If James does force you to leave, you’re welcome to come stay with me.” 

Ron didn’t answer, just looking at the garden. The chokevine cutting squeezed his arm. 

“It…” Ron tried to say it out loud, once Julia had gone inside. He tried to say it to the plants. “It was his fault.” 

It felt wrong. It felt like a betrayal. It made Ron feel sick, and he wasn’t sure if it was because it felt like he was betraying James, or because he knew it was right.


	34. Not All Communication Was Made Equal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry.

“We’re going to talk.”

James looked at Ron, then looked at the door. Ron may or may not have waited until he’d gone outside to pee and then stood in front of the house’s only door. “Get out of the way,” he said quietly. 

“No. We’re going to talk,” Ron repeated. There were only five days left. They had to talk now or they never would. Ron knew both of them well enough to know that. 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” James said, voice sounding a bit broken. 

That hit Ron like a slap, but he kept his gaze on James. “I don’t care. I want to talk to you. You owe me that much.”

“Move.”

“Move me,” Ron challenged, standing there. “You could, if you wanted.”

James stood there for a minute, looking at Ron without ever making eye contact, then he looked away, down at the ground. “Fine. Talk.” 

Ron swallowed, tried to keep his thoughts in order. This was more progress than he’d made in the last two weeks, he didn’t want to mess it up now. “Why didn’t you tell me what happened? What really happened, when you healed me?”

Why hadn’t James told him that he’d nearly killed Ron?

“Because I couldn’t,” James whispered. “It…was too hard.”

“I thought I’d done something wrong, James.” Ron had to keep it together here, he couldn’t start crying. “I thought it was my fault. You let me think it was my fault for days, James.” 

“It wasn’t,” James shook his head, eyes shut. “It wasn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know. You did.”

James nodded, sniffing. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need you to apologize, James,” Ron said, keeping his voice down. “I need you to stop punishing me for it.”

“I’m not…” James shook his head again now, vehement. “I’m not punishing you. I’m protecting you. From me.”

“I don’t need to be protected from you.” Ron knew that.

“Yes, you do,” James insisted. “I’m dangerous.”

“I don’t care,” Ron told him. 

“Well, you should!” 

Ron was quiet for a minute, watching James take breaths, try to calm down. 

“I’m going to hurt you if you stay here,” James said after a minute. “I don’t want to, but I will.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I hurt everyone I love, Ron.” It was so matter-of-fact, the way James said that. 

“So your solution is to never love anyone again?” Ron demanded. “That’s not an answer.” 

“It’s the only one I have!”

“Well, you don’t get to decide that for both of us!” Ron did raise his voice that time and wished he hadn’t. “There are two of us here,” he said, in a more level tone. “You don’t get to be the one making all those decisions. That’s not how it works.” 

“Yes, it is.” James took a breath. “You can’t force me to let you stay here. Please, Ron. Just go. It’s for your own good.”

Ron felt his expression contort into a glare. “You have no right to tell me what’s for my own good and what isn’t.” He crossed his arms, trying to stand firm. 

“You gave me that right almost a year ago.”

“This isn’t…whatever game we were playing before.” Ron was starting to shake. He’d thought he was going to cry, going to break down and sob again. But instead, instead Ron was getting angry, a hot rage that made him want to throw up. “I let you decide things for me before because I trusted you to make the right ones. And because I knew you respected me enough to think about me when you were making them, not just yourself. You’re not doing either of those things now. You have no right to tell me what’s for my own good.”

“I’m just trying to take care of you…” James whispered.

“Don’t.” Ron shook his head. “Don’t you dare. Don’t fucking pretend that this is about me, James. You’re not trying to protect me, you’re trying to make yourself less scared. You want me to leave so you don’t have to deal with what you did.”

“And you want to stay because you’re too afraid to be by yourself,” James retorted. “It doesn’t matter who it is, you just want someone to take care of you and it’s easier if it’s me because I’m here. I almost killed you and you’d rather stay here with me than find someone safer because you don’t know how to be alone, Ron.” 

Ron stared at James into the silence that fell after that. James opened his eyes, and he looked at Ron. He looked like he was trying as hard not to cry as Ron was. “I know you don’t want this,” Ron whispered. 

James quavered a little. “Move out of the way, Ron. Please.”

They were so close, Ron could reach out and touch James if he wanted to. He could reach out and hug him, wipe the tears from his eyes. 

Ron had never felt more far away from James than he did right now. 

He moved out of the way. 

“Thank you,” James lowered his head, raced into the house, left Ron out there by himself. 

He wasn’t going to change James’s mind, Ron realized as he stood there. He wasn’t going to make James see reason when he was being so unreasonable. James wanted him to leave and Ron couldn’t stay where he wasn’t wanted. He couldn’t stay here if James didn’t want him to.

His chest hurt. 

Ron knew what he had to do.


	35. Time Only Runs out if You Let it

Silence filled the house, suffocating Ron. 

He stood there in the bedroom, slowly packing up his things. He didn’t have many things and most of what he did have was travel supplies that he hadn’t taken out of his bag in the year he’d been here. In the year his bag had been sitting here on James’s dresser, unused and untouched. In the best year of his life. 

Everything he needed was in here, including some food and supplies he’d taken from James. Everything he needed to take him all the way out of the forest. Forever. He’d known that already, but Ron had still taken it all out and slowly, meticulously repacked it all. 

He felt empty. The only thing here to fill him up was the silence in the house. 

Ron tied his bag shut, lifted it in one hand. It wasn’t as heavy as it could be. 

He turned, left the bedroom. James was sitting at the kitchen table, hands balled into fists, just breathing. Ron couldn’t even look at him. He walked to the door, got his sword from the stand behind it, slung it over his back. And he stood there, quiet. 

James didn’t say anything, and neither did Ron. 

Ron couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t take the quiet anymore. 

He closed his eyes, took a breath. Said the words. “I’m leaving now.” His voice sounded cracked, useless. 

“Okay.” James’s voice was so quiet, as if he were afraid of what the silence would do if he broke it.

Ron stood there for another second, pressing down on his urge to cry. “Goodbye.”

James didn’t answer him. This was the first conversation they’d had since their fight the other day. The silence went on. Ron opened the door. 

Stepped outside. Shut it behind him.

He stood there, on the other side of James’s door, listening to the wind and birds and the forest, and looking at the wall of tree roots that blocked the house from the rest of the forest. Evidence of James’s anger. Evidence that he was dangerous, and that Ron should be afraid of him.

All Ron saw was evidence that James was scared and lonely and wanted to stay that way.

Ron was in the wrong place. He was dull, empty, the world was backwards and he felt sick. He started walking. 

He turned away, moving to the side of the house, towards the garden. He patted plants on the way by, pleased at how much better they were doing now that he’d trimmed them. He felt an odd content in the garden lately, probably because it was more welcoming than the house. 

Ron got to the back corner of the garden, where the chokevine lived. He stopped, looked down at it. It lay there, innocuous. “You suck,” he said to it. “But you did bring me here, and that was pretty okay, so truce?”

It was probably just his imagination that the chokevine rustled in answer. It was definitely not his imagination, however, that there was now a vine wrapped around Ron’s ankle. 

Ron chuckled, reached down to free himself. “Here I came to you under a flag of peace, you asshole.” He set his bag down so he could unwrap the plant. 

A second vine had wrapped around his other ankle, and one was moving for his wrist now, the plant stimulated by Ron’s movement. Ron smirked. Instead of going to free himself, he opened his bag, pulled out one of the supplies he’d taken from James. A small vial of liquid, which he uncorked. “You fucking started it.” And he poured the vial onto the main body of the plant, sitting there calmly. 

It was a fast-acting poison, so in only a few minutes, the chokevine tendrils went limp and Ron wasn’t restrained anymore. He recorked the bottle, picked up his bag and turned around. 

The world was backwards, and Ron was going to fucking put it right if it killed him. 

Ron headed back for the house, heart beating like a battle drum, and he stopped in front of the door, raising his fist and banging on it. 

James didn’t answer, which Ron had expected. He kept banging, banging until his fist started to hurt, banging until he door rattled. 

Finally the door was wrenched open, a red-eyed James standing there, panting. “What are you doing?”

Ron swallowed. “Your stupid plant trapped me again on my way out. I had to kill it.” He pressed the empty bottle into James’s hands, shouldered past him and into the house, setting his bag down on the floor and putting his sword back in the stand. “It’ll be at least a year until it grows back, I figure.”

“Ron…”

“I guess I’ll have to stay here in the meantime and do its job for you. That’s how it works, right?”

“What are you doing?” James whispered.

“The right thing. It’s not fair to take away your plant and then just walk away, right?” Ron stuck his hands in his pockets as he spoke, watching James. 

“Ron.” James’s voice cracked. “Stop.”

“Did you think,” Ron began, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Did you think for a minute that I was going to leave? I love you, you asshole. Did you really think that you could just ignore me until I went away?”

Ron had thought that until their argument. That was when he’d realized that he couldn’t.

James looked away, breath coming faster, swallowing a little. 

“You did, didn’t you?” Ron asked. “You did, because that’s what my dad did. You did, because you knew I’d done it before. I told you that about myself and you used it against me. I’m so…” Ron choked a little, but he had to say it. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

James’s intake of breath was sharp, and he squeezed his eyes shut. “That’s exactly what my mother said to me when I refused to go with her.” 

_Shit_. Ron hadn’t known that. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” Ron asked. “It’s about our parents. My dad ignored me so I’m afraid to be alone. Your mom hurt you so you’re afraid not to be.” 

“This is about the fact that I love you so goddamn much that I can’t bear the thought of hurting you again like I did before!” James didn’t shout, but he did raise his voice enough that Ron nearly jumped at the volume. He was looking at Ron now, at least, eyes swimming. “I can’t protect you, all I can do is hurt you.”

“That’s not true.” Ron stepped forward, put his hands on James’s shoulders, held him there. 

“Don’t touch me.”

“Why?”

“Ron, let go of me, please.”

“Make me,” Ron told him, looking James in the eye. “You could. You could force me to let go of you. You could force me to do whatever you wanted. You could just lift me up and toss me away if you don’t want me to be here.”

“I…”

“But you won’t,” Ron told him. “And we both know that, James.”

James sniffed, trying to hold back tears. “I don’t _want_ to hurt you. But I will. It’s what I do.”

“It’s what we all do. We all hurt people. And we all hurt the people we love. It’s what being human is.” Ron let go of James’s shoulders, stepped back. “If you really, honestly want me to leave, if you really don’t want me here, James, I’ll go. I will. I’ll be miserable, but I’ll go. But…” Ron took a breath. “I just love you so much, more than anything. I love you, and I don’t want to leave. And you love me, and I don’t think you want me to leave. So it seems stupid for me to leave if neither of us wants it.”

“But…” James was quivering, shaking. Crying properly now, eyes shut again. “But I…I’ll hurt you…”

“And I’ll hurt you too. And we’ll figure it out.” Ron was crying too, cheeks wet with tears. His whole world had shrunk to James, standing there in front of him, hurt.

James stood there for a minute, crying. And finally, slowly, he nodded. “Okay,” he said, voice barely audible. “Okay.” He took a staggering step forward, towards Ron. Ron held his arms out, pulled James into a hug, and held him close. James held him back, and they both just stood there, crying, holding each other. Ron could hear faint music. “I love you so much,” James sobbed.

“I love you too.” Ron nodded into James’s shoulder. “So much.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ron. For everything I said. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry for hurting you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know, I know.” Ron rubbed James’s back. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry for the things I said too. I’m sorry for everything.” 

“You don’t have…”

“Shhh…” Ron interrupted. “Don’t. We were both wrong.”

“Mostly me.”

Ron thought about what Julia had said to him in the garden. “Yeah. But not totally.”

“Okay.” James nodded, getting his tears under control a little. “Then I guess I forgive you too.”

“Thank you.”

James looked up at Ron, and his eyes went a little wide. He reached up, into Ron’s hair, and he pulled out a flower petal. “Where did…”

“There’s a lot of them,” James said, pulling out a few more. “I think they’re growing in your hair.”

Ron frowned, reached up. Sure enough, some flower petals fell loose. “That’s weird.”

“Maybe it’s a side effect from when I…” James trailed off. “You’re so pretty.”

“So are you,” Ron told him, a flower petal falling across his vision. 

James smiled, hesitantly, and he wrapped his arms back around Ron for a hug. “I can’t believe I almost lost you.”

“I can’t believe I almost left.” It had been less than an hour ago. It felt like lifetimes. “Promise you’ll never make me leave.”

“Promise you won’t go.”

“I promise.”

“I promise too.”

“I love you,” Ron whispered, feeling whole again.

“I love you too, Ron.” James hugged him for a minute more. “Did you have to kill the chokevine?”

“Yes.”

“You could have said all of that without murdering my plant.”

“Yeah,” Ron admitted. He smiled. “Oh well.”

James laughed, a musical sound. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, James.”

They stayed together, hugging, holding each other, for a long time. Ron never planned to miss James again.


	36. Never Underestimate the Power of a Simple Conversation

“Mm.”

“Good morning.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes. Did you?”

“Better than I have in a long time.”

“Me too. I love you.”

“I love you too.” 

James smiled, finally opening his eyes and looking up at Ron from his place on Ron’s chest. He laughed suddenly. “There are flower petals everywhere.’

Ron made a little noise, reached up and grabbed a few of them between two fingers. “Guess we’re going to have to get used to those.”

“I guess so.” James smiled. “And here I thought you couldn’t get any prettier.”

“Stop,” Ron chuckled.

“No. Let’s wake up like this every day.”

“At noon?”

“Ideally. But I meant together,” James said, reaching up and taking some flower petals as well.

“I think we can manage that.” 

James smiled some more, but eventually yawned, then sat up. Ron sat with him. James’s stomach made a loud noise. “I’m really hungry.”

“That’s because you haven’t eaten properly in a month.”

“Neither have you,” James told him, stretching. “Let’s go make breakfast.”

Ron nodded, and the two of them got out of bed, not bothering to get dressed as they made their way into the kitchen. Ron’s bag of things was still sitting there, on the floor, ignored. 

They made breakfast together, Ron frying bacon while James overcooked the eggs, and sat down to eat. “I never thought we’d do this again,” James muttered, eating a lot more enthusiastically than Ron was used to. 

“Yeah.” Ron covered James’s hand with his, and the two of them ate in silence. 

When they’d put the dishes away, James took a breath, sat back down at the table. “We have to talk.”

“Yeah.” Ron didn’t want to. He just wanted to revel in this, just wanted to have this. But James was right. Not talking had been what had caused their problems before; Ron didn’t want a repeat of that. “You know one of the things that Spike told me is that we had to make sure we always talked about everything.”

James nodded. He was fidgeting his fingers. “Me too. We’re not very good at that.”

“I guess not.” Ron sighed, looked at James. “We should try to get better.”

“We should. We can’t have a relationship if I keep refusing to talk to you every time something happens.”

“We also can’t have a relationship if we both keep blaming ourselves for everything,” Ron added, gently. 

“Right.” James looked away. “If both of us refuse to talk when something’s wrong. No more?”

“No more,” Ron promised. “I promise I’ll tell you when something’s bothering me.”

“Me too. I…I won’t decide what’s good for you without talking to you about it first. That wasn’t fair.” James’s expression tightened. “Nothing I did in the last three weeks was fair.”

“No,” Ron shook his head. “It wasn’t. I know you were trying to protect me. I know it was because you care about me. But you were hurting me.” Ron smiled. “And not in a way that I like.”

“We should talk about that too.”

“I know.” Ron nodded. “But first. I wasn’t thinking about how you felt either. I thought you were mad at me. I was being selfish. I’m going to pay more attention to how you’re feeling from now on. Not everything revolves around me.”

James nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry. For hurting you. And for losing control. And for pushing you away. I’m sorry.”

“I know.” Ron squeezed James’s hand on the table. “I forgive you. And I’m sorry for not realizing why you were doing it.”

“I…I forgive you too.” James took a breath. “I’ve never been as scared as I was when I saw you get hurt. Even when my family betrayed us. I could…feel the world falling apart underneath me. I thought…” Another breath. “I thought that if you died, the world had better fall apart.”

Ron shivered a little. “That’s a bit scary,” he admitted. 

“I know. I scared myself too.”

“It’s how I would have felt if you’d been hurt, though.”

James smiled. “The difference being that you don’t have the power to make the world fall apart.”

“Do you?” Was James really that powerful?

“I don’t know. I don’t plan to find out. I…” James paused again. “I wasn’t using the stone. Maybe a little, I was resonating with it. But it was in the house. All that, I did almost all of that on my own. And I only stopped because you made me.”

“You’re not allowed to end the world,” Ron told him, to cover his unease. “Even if I die. There are lots of parts of it that we both like.”

“I guess so.” James smiled at him a little. “You’re taking this better than I thought.”

“I’ve had some time to think about it,” Ron said. “You’re scary. But if I was scared of you, you’d know. I could have left…you were right, that I’m afraid to be alone.”

“I shouldn’t have…”

“No, but you were right,” Ron interrupted. “I don’t want to be by myself. But I could be with anyone. There are people everywhere. Julia told me I could live with her. I could go back home and build a house with Owen if he hasn’t run off to be a knight. I’m not with you because you’re the easiest person. I’m with you because I want to be. Okay?”

James closed his eyes, trying to keep his face under control. “Okay. I’m with you because I want to be too. Even if you kill my plants.”

“One plant, and it started it.”

James laughed a little at that. “Okay. We’ll worry about that later. Um. You trusted me to take care of you, and I took advantage of that and used it to hurt you. And you trusted me with your past, and I used that to hurt you too. I understand if you’re not ready to trust me again.”

“Of course I am,” Ron promised, smiling. “I know, I know that part of the problem was that I was too trusting, and that I was too quick to assume you hadn’t done anything wrong. But I do trust you, really.”

James nodded. “I don’t know why.”

“Because you’ve always done your best to keep me safe, even when you were bad at it. You just lost your way a little bit the last few weeks.” Ron looked at him. “I’ll understand if you’re not ready to trust yourself again. But I think you should.”

“Is…” James inhaled, paused for a good minute. “I’ve never asked you this and I should have. The kind of relationship we had. Is that what you want? We don’t have to. I liked it. But if you’d rather be more normal…”

“What wasn’t normal about us?” Ron asked. “We took care of each other. We loved each other, and we both enjoyed it. I was really happy.” It wasn’t the kind of relationship Ron had imagined for himself, but his time with James had been more fulfilling than he could have expected. “We don’t have to keep doing that if you don’t want. But I liked it too.”

“I was kind of worried that I forced you into it.”

“No.” Ron shook his head. “I trust you not to hurt me. And I expect you to trust me not to let myself get hurt. I would tell you if I didn’t like it.”

James watched Ron for a moment as if searching for falsehood. He nodded. “I do, I do trust you to tell me that. Okay. We can stay the way we were if you want. I think that we should talk about it, properly, in a day or two once we’ve had time to think. And have a clear talk about what we want and what we like, and what the rules are going to be. For both of us.”

“Okay.” That sounded like a good idea. “I guess if I’m going to be staying here forever, we should stop making it up as we go along.”

James chuckled. “I agree.”

“We should, um…” Ron bit his lip. “Maybe we should ask Spike to come help us, when we have that talk. He seems to know a lot about this stuff.”

“You’re right.” James coloured a little. “He’ll never stop making fun of me, but you’re right. It would be good to have someone who knew what they were doing, since obviously we don’t.”

“I think we were getting pretty good at it, though.” Ron grinned at James. 

“I think so too.” James smiled back, and he took Ron’s hand and kissed it. “And we’re always going to be equals, no matter what the rules say. You have just as much say as I do. More, even, since you’re the one giving up control. You have the right to say what that looks like.”

Ron flushed, but he knew James was right. “We’ll decide together. And for the record, the rules, and the game and everything. I love you without them. They make it more fun, but I don’t need them to love you, James.”

“Me either, Ron. I’ll always love you, rules or no.”

“Rules or no.”

They sat there, the two of them, all day. Talking.


	37. Negotiating Rules Is an Important Prerequisite to Living by Them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look! It's the conversation they should have had a year ago!
> 
> (Let's just all agree not to notice that I accidentally posted this chapter in the wrong story a minute ago)

“Okay.”

“You ready?”

“Yeah. This feels weird.”

“Should we wait?”

“No, no. It’s fine. It’s just funny.”

“How so?”

“That we’re sitting and having a meeting.” Ron shrugged. “You don’t think it’s weird?” 

James smiled, looked down at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. Ron had one as well. “I guess. If there’s a different way you’d prefer to do it, that’s fine.”

“No, no.” Ron nodded, smiling back at James. “I’m okay. I think this is for the best.”

They were both dressed, sitting at the kitchen table, which they’d cleared of all the other usual piles of books and paper and half-empty jars that usually lived there. Ron had cleaned the whole kitchen, actually. And he’d baked cookies. 

Maybe he was a little nervous. 

“Me too,” James said, taking a cookie. “There’s a…” he waved his hands vaguely. “A performance, to the things that we normally do. There’s a different kind of performance to this. Something that we do very differently so we know it’s different. That it’s not part of the normal performance.” James frowned. “Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Ron said, nodding as he thought about that. “Yeah, I think so. You put a lot of thought into this.”

“Yes.” James nodded. He bit into the cookie and came away with crumbs on his lips. “I do.”

“That’s good,” Spike said, sitting on an upturned bowl on the table in between them with a cookie in his arms. “You can’t go into this half-cocked. It needs thinking about.” He broke off part of the cookie, ate it. “You probably don’t even need me here.”

“I feel better having you here,” James told him. “To make sure we’re doing it right.”

“Me too,” Ron agreed.

Spike nodded. “I don’t know if there’s a right way, but there are a hell of a lot of wrong ways, so I’m happy to help. You didn’t put enough sugar in these cookies.”

“If I’d put more sugar in, eating just one would make you fat,” Ron shot back. They were good cookies. 

“Rude.” Spike bit off some more cookie. “But I’ll let it slide this time. You’re in a grace period because you finally got James to act like people again. But it won’t last.”

“I’m duly warned,” Ron said, as James coloured a little. 

Spike nodded. “Anyway, James is right. Appearances are important, and it’s important that they’re different here from in the games you guys usually play. Right now, at this table, you are not James’s servant, understand? It’s not your job to make him happy. It’s your job to keep yourself—and him—safe. Got it?”

Ron nodded. He knew this was serious. “Got it.”

“And you too,” Spike said to James, pointing. “You’re not Ron’s boss, and you’re not here to placate him. I don’t care if you feel bad about how you treated him, that’s not the point today. You’re here to put down rules that will keep both of you safe. Both of you, but mostly him since he’s the one you’ll be whipping.”

“I understand,” James said, also nodding. 

“Good.” Spike took another bite, made a face and pulled a raisin out of his cookie. “Is this a raisin? What kind of psychopath puts raisins in a cookie?” He fixed Ron with a glare.

“Raisins are good for you.”

“If I wanted to be healthy I’d fuck a carrot.” Spike threw the raisin at Ron. “I’m eating a cookie, not a salad.”

“What happened to my grace period?” Ron asked.

The glare intensified. “You’re really pushing it here, kid.” Spike huffed a bit, shaking his head. “Anyway. The fact that Ron is chaos incarnate aside, let’s get started. Start with your basic ground rules.” 

James nodded. “Okay. I guess the most basic rule is that you’re going to do as I say.”

Ron nodded. “Unless I can’t.”

“Yes, unless you can’t, or unless it’s dangerous or it scares you. Which is the second rule. You’re always allowed to say no—actually, I expect you to say no, for those reasons.” 

“That’s good, that’s a better way to word it,” Spike said, nodding. 

Ron did the same. “I can do those two things. And I expect you to pay attention to how I’m feeling, and not expect me to do things that are going to hurt me because you think it’s for the best.” 

James flinched a little, but he nodded. “I won’t.”

“Ron,” Spike said. “Do you know the difference between not wanting to do something because it sucks and not wanting to do something because it’s genuinely not in your best interests?”

Ron hesitated. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that being told to eat your vegetables is different from being told to eat poison. Do you need James to be explaining the difference to you when you’re not sure?”

“Um…” Ron wasn’t sure. He took a cookie, thinking about it. “I think I know the difference most of the time.” 

“Okay. Because trusting him means trusting him, even if he doesn’t tell you why something is good for you.” As Ron nodded, Spike turned to James. “But that said, you should be prepared to explain yourself if it comes up. Don’t go giving orders if you can’t tell Ron why you gave them. Especially if it’s about something that might upset him.”

“I understand,” James said, nodding. He was taking notes. “And you’re always allowed to ask me if you don’t understand something.”

“And it’s okay for you to tell me to do things I don’t like sometimes.”

James nodded, still writing. Ron started writing too, trying to summarize what they were saying. He felt all professional. 

It was weird. 

“One more,” James said. “You’re not allowed to do anything that you know will end with you getting seriously hurt. No matter what.” 

“I…” Ron lowered his head a little. “I’m not sure I can do that. What if you get attacked again?”

“There’s a difference between defending me and intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way for me.”

“I’m not going to let you die.”

“You’re _not_ going to die for me.” 

They had a staring contest for a good minute. Spike watched them. Eventually, Ron sighed. “Fine. I can’t promise that I won’t get hurt, but I’ll be careful and if I do get hurt, it will be an accident.”

James held his gaze for a moment longer, but he nodded. “Okay.” He wrote that down, and sighed. “I think those are the basic rules on my end. You?”

“You’ll take care of me,” Ron told him. “And you’ll trust me to take care of you too—you’ll listen when I tell you that you haven’t eaten or that you’re working too hard.”

“Right. Okay.” James took a breath. “I think that’s it, then. More specific rules now?” he asked, looking at Spike.

“I think you covered all the main points,” Spike agreed. “Go ahead.”

James smiled. “You’ll catch fish for me and protect me, and look pretty around the house.”

Ron nodded, unconsciously reaching his hand up to his hair. There were no flower petals there right now, at least. “I can do that.”

“You won’t wear any clothes in or around the house—though you can if people come over. You won’t swear—and I reserve the right to punish you when you do.” 

Ron smiled back. “Sounds good. What else?” He knew what else. These were rules they’d had the whole time. 

“You’ll take care of the house—I’ll help, you’re not a slave—and be my assistant when I need one. You can lift things that are heavy for me, and you’ll keep up your sword practice, just in case.”

“Okay. I can agree to all that.” Ron said.

“And you have to stop killing my plants.”

Ron glared at him. “It had it coming.” James held his gaze. “Fine. You’re not going to ignore me, I expect at least some attention from you every day, even if you’re busy. You’re going to eat when I feed you, you’re going to tell me when things are poisonous and you’re going to tell me before I’m about to get in trouble with something in this forest, not after I already have.”

James nodded. “Okay.”

“And I want you to praise me when I do well.” 

That got him a smile. “I can do that. And you won’t touch yourself or do anything sexual without permission.” 

“Works for me.”

“Before we get into the sex stuff,” Spike interrupted, throwing another raisin at Ron. “Let’s talk about your mutual talking issues. The issue being that you’re both fucking bad at it.”

James made a bit of a face, looking at Spike, but he nodded and brought his eyes back to Ron. “You will tell me when something is bothering you.”

Ron nodded. “And so will you.”

“Agreed.” They both wrote that one down. “No more bottling things up. I don’t want things to be a secret from you. I don’t want to hide things.”

“You don’t have to tell me every single thing that’s ever happened to you,” Ron told him. “But I do want to know about the stuff that’s still bugging you. I want to know if I’m making it worse.”

“You aren’t,” James promised. “But okay. And the same goes for you. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s silly. I want to know if it’s bugging you. You’re not going to bother me by saying what you’re thinking.”

“Good, that’s good.” Spike looked at both of them. “It’s lovely and adorable that you’ve said all that. Now the important thing is actually fucking doing it.” He pointed at James. “You especially are a masterpiece of self-repression. And from what I hear he’s no better.” 

They both nodded agreement. The past few weeks had made that pretty clear. “Good. Now go wild with the sex stuff.”

“Hold on,” Ron held up his hand. He’d thought of something else. “James. You’re going to do your work with the Grand Coven, and you’re going to pay attention to your family once in a while.”

James went a little red at that. “Those things don’t have anything to do with our relationship.”

“They do if I live here and have to deal with the fact that you ignore your cousins for months and the Coven for years,” Ron retorted. 

They had another brief staring contest, but Ron won that time. James looked away, sticking another cookie into his mouth. “Okay,” he said, mouth full. 

“And if I’m going to do sword practice, you’re going to practice magic. Your grandmother is worried that you’ll lose your powers if you don’t.”

James raised an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder. They couldn’t see the wall of tree roots from here because there was no window on that side of the house. But they all knew it was there. “I don’t think there’s a danger of that.”

“There is an argument to be made that if you had better control over your shit, you wouldn’t have exploded like that,” Spike said, looking at the ceiling.

James looked like he wanted to disagree, but he relented. “Fine. You’re going to be my excuse when I don’t want to deal with them, though. I can’t always do it.”

“Okay. As long as it’s not all the time. They miss you.”

“I know,” James said quietly, looking down at the paper. “Okay. Sex.”

“Let’s have it sometimes.”

“I agree. What do you like?”

Ron was already blushing a little. “Um. You know.”

“That doesn’t really translate well to paper.”

“Do you need me to leave?” Spike asked, obviously amused. 

“No, no. I’m fine.” Ron swallowed, straightened a little. “I like it when you tie me up, and blindfold me. I like being spanked, and I like being told no sometimes.”

There, he’d said it. James smiled encouragement at him. “Good. I like using toys on you, I like making you beg and I like controlling you.”

“I like it when you hurt me—but only a little bit. I don’t know if I’d be into it if it was too much.”

“I don’t know if I would either. How about we try to do more and more and see where those limits are, okay?”

Ron took in a deep breath, and he nodded. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

“You should always try to bump up against limits if you can,” Spike suggested. “Okay, maybe not always, and I guess it’s not for everyone. But sometimes. You might be surprised by what you like that you didn’t think you would, especially if it’s brought on slowly. I never used to think I’d like being electrocuted until I tried it with the right people.” 

That was more information than Ron needed about Spike, but he couldn’t well say that when they’d asked him to supervise their conversation about their own sex lives. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t really have lots of things that I actively don’t want to do, so I’m happy to try anything, really.”

“Me too,” James said, looking at Ron curiously. “But you must have other things you like, right?”

“Not that I can think of.” Ron shrugged. 

“Really?” James tapped his paper. “This is all stuff you’ve done with me. What about with other people before me? You must have done something that you liked?”

Ron went a very deep red, and shook his head. 

“You’re not going to hurt my feelings by talking about it, Ron,” James said, exasperated. “We just finished talking about the not keeping secrets.”

Ron nodded, and looked up, smiling nervously. “I’d, uh, never been with anyone else before you.” 

That brought James short, and he stared at Ron for a good minute, slowly reddening himself. “Oh. I just…thought…you seemed so confident about what you liked, and…”

“Yeah, I, um. Didn’t want you to think I didn’t know what I was doing,” Ron admitted. He wasn’t sure why this was embarrassing him as much as it was. “I didn’t want you to get nervous.” 

James cleared his throat. “Well. Okay. You did a good job. I really thought you had experience.”

Ron shook his head. “I mean. I messed around with my cousin a few times. But we were kids, so it’s not like we did anything serious, you know?” 

“Okay,” James said, biting his lip a little. “Okay, then.” 

Spike started laughing. “You two are fucking adorable. It’s disgusting.”

“Not all of us can have drunken treetop orgies with strangers,” Ron grumbled, pausing. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what you like. Just…you know. Shut up.”

Spike flipped Ron off, and threw another raisin. “Here’s what you should do. Leave a big blank space in this part of your contract. Write stuff in as you try it—especially the stuff that you definitely don’t like, so not doing it can be right in the rules.” 

“That’s a good idea, thank you.” James did just that, still trying to compose himself a little. “Um. Obviously, you’ll tell me when you don’t like something, and I’ll stop. But again, remember the difference between not liking something and needing something to stop, at least when it comes to punishments. Are you okay with me using time-outs as a punishment?”

Ron thought about that one, but nodded. “Yes. As long as I deserve it.”

“Try not to, and it won’t be a problem.” James smiled. “It’ll be a last resort for if you really piss me off.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

That got James blushing again, and he looked down once more. “I’ll also punish you in other ways, don’t worry. Mostly by not letting you have orgasms.”

“That’s going to be an effective deterrent.”

“Maybe I’ll finally break that swearing habit of yours.”

“Probably fucking not.”

James chuckled. “If you ever think of something you want to try, just say so. I might not always say yes, but I’ll at least consider it and you know I won’t ever laugh or anything, no matter what it is.”

“You can do the same thing. I’m willing to try anything once, at least in theory.” 

“I think that’s everything, then.” James bit his lip, looking down at what he’d written. “Did I miss anything?”

“One thing,” Spike said, pointing. “Do you ever play in a way that might have Ron saying no—as part of the game, not for real?”

“What do you mean?” James asked, frowning. Ron felt as confused as he looked. 

“I mean, you’re, I don’t know, punishing him for something. And you’ve got him, what, tied up and you’re spanking him in a way he’s not supposed to like, and you know he doesn’t like it. And maybe you like that part, so you want him to beg you to stop and you don’t stop. Or something.”

“Um…” James bit his lip, obviously thinking about that. Ron could tell from his expression that he wasn’t dismissing it out of hand. “I’m not sure. Ron saying no has always meant no.”

“I could see it being…fun,” Ron ventured, because he could. “But…”

“That’s what I’m saying. You guys need to set up another word—one that can always mean no, even when no doesn’t. And not just for when you’re punishing him. Ron needs an escape, for if he ever needs to stop playing the game, get out of that,” Spike gestured to the bedroom, “and back to this,” he pointed at the table. “You both should have it, but Ron especially needs one. Something he can say or do if he doesn’t feel safe or comfortable that when you hear it, you stop, always, no questions, and make him safe again.”

“Oh,” James said quietly, eyes widening. “I see. A way to tell me he’s afraid I’m about to make him eat poison.”

“That’s right,” Spike said seriously. “A way to tell you he doesn’t feel safe. The most important thing if you’re going to have this relationship is that Ron has to always feel safe. If he doesn’t, then something’s wrong and you need to fix it. Got it?”

“Got it.” James nodded solemnly, and he looked at Ron, who nodded too. It did sound important, he thought. Not because he didn’t feel safe with James, but because it was good for both of them if he had a way to articulate it if he ever didn’t. “You should pick something.”

“Yeah, um…” Nothing came to mind.

“Something you won’t say normally,” Spike added. “Especially during sex. Once you’re a little farther along in this you might want two words—one to stop completely and one to just get James’s attention, get him to slow down and change whatever you don’t like without stopping. But for now just have the one, it’s easier while you get used to the idea.”

Ron nodded again, thinking. It was funny how his entire vocabulary had left his head all of the sudden. “Um. Poleaxe.” He felt embarrassed for no real reason. “I always thought they looked cool but I can’t use one, so…”

James smiled. “Okay.” He wrote that down on his paper. “Ron, I expect you to use it.”

“I…”

“Don’t ‘I won’t’ me,” Spike warned. “He’s right—use that shit if you have to. Your safety is more important than some idea that you’re going to hurt James’s feelings. And it will hurt his feelings if you let yourself get hurt because you didn’t stop when you needed to. Using the word tells him you trust him to stop when he’s going to far.” 

“Okay.” Ron looked at the table for a second, nodded. He looked back up at James. “I’ll use it if I have to.” They’d just finished talking about not hiding their problems, after all. 

“Good. The two of you should have had something like that set up from the beginning, you know.” 

“Sorry,” James mumbled. 

“Better late than never. Alright, you hit all the high points,” Spike said, nodding to himself. “Here’s what you’re going to do. This isn’t carved in stone. Give it two months, then do this again and see if you want to change anything. For God’s sake, have a lot of sex in those two months, figure out what you like and don’t. Once you’re sure it’s what you both want on that paper, keep it that way until the end of a year. Then go back to it every year. You should always be checking in and making sure you’re both on the same page.”

“I think we can do that,” James said, watching Ron write up the last of his paper. They swapped, and Ron was mildly surprised to find that James’s version wasn’t written as coherently as his. But it said all the same stuff.

“Good,” Spike said. “All of it—I meant that lots of sex part. You both like sex, why aren’t you having lots of it? It’s a bloody travesty.”

“We like other things too,” Ron said, a little defensive. He did like sex, a lot. But he also liked cuddling and going for walks and eating together and working in companionable silence, and just being in the same space as James.

“Yeah, like put raisins in cookies,” Spike snorted. 

“Thank you for helping, Spike.” James said, when he’d finished reading over Ron’s paper. “I appreciate it, and all the help. And I’m sorry for not listening to you before.”

“Hey.” Spike abandoned his cookie, buzzing up into the air a bit. “I just want you idiots to be happy, okay?”

“That’s what we want too.” 

Spike smiled at James. “Alright. You both have weird hang-ups about modesty, so I’m going to leave so you can get to the sex. Have fun; if you don’t, it’s because you’re doing it wrong.”

Ron laughed a little. “Thank you. I’ll make cookies without raisins next time.”

“And more sugar.”

“No promises.” There was a perfectly good amount of sugar in those cookies. 

“After all I’ve done for you,” Spike griped, buzzing to the open window. “I’ll be checking in later.”

“Thank you, Spike,” James said, and Spike smiled one more time before jumping out the window. 

“That was good,” Ron said, after he’d gone. He picked up all the raisins that Spike that thrown at him to toss into the garden. 

“Yes, it was. I’m glad we did that.” James let out a breath, and gave Ron a bit of a look. “You’re already breaking rules.”

“Am I?” Ron smiled.

“Clothes.”

Ron looked down at his clothes, grinned. “Oops. Guess I’d better fix that.”

James stood, moving around the table to approach Ron. “Let me. We do have some instructions to follow.”


	38. It’s Easy to Misinterpret the Actions of Something You Can’t Communicate With

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't let the year go without this. I know how much you guys have been looking forward to this.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Taking care of the garden.”

“Oh.”

“I appreciate it.”

“I just needed something to do.”

“You did it well, it looks really nice.”

“Thanks.”

“Except for this one dead plant here in the corner.”

Ron rolled his eyes, glaring at the withered chokevine. “It had it coming.”

“What did it ever do to you?” James asked, smiling at the garden as he wandered through it, brushing the plants as he went. They were all doing pretty well, but Ron got the impression that they liked having James back. 

“That’s not a serious question, right?” Ron frowned at James now. “It hates me. It trapped me.”

“Which brought you here,” James reminded him.

“Yeah,” Ron admitted, looking away. “Then it trapped me again.”

“To stop you leaving, and you put your foot in it on purpose.”

Fair enough. “I guess. It wasn’t trying to bring me here or stop me leaving. It was trying to eat me.”

“It likes you,” James insisted. His path was clearly taking him towards the chokevine. “Wrapping around you is how it communicates. It just wanted to be your friend and you poisoned it.”

“You’re crazy,” Ron told him.

“I’ve had long conversations with this plant about you,” James countered, shaking his head. He stopped in front of the main body of the chokevine, and knelt down in front of it. “It likes you.”

“Then it should be happy to die for the cause of me staying here,” Ron decided.

“You’re so mean. Plants have feelings, you know.”

“You trying to tell me plants are alive?” Ron asked, suspicious.

“Of course they’re _alive_ , what do you think they are, rocks?”

Ron coloured. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that they’re…” he gestured vaguely at himself and James.

“Sentient? Yes, to a degree. Not entirely in the way that we understand sentience, but close enough.” James gestured for Ron to join him and Ron knelt down as well, careful not to scrape his knees on the dried plant. He needed to clear all of this out of here today while they were working in the garden.

James put his hands in the dirt under the plant. “What are you doing?” Ron asked.

“You owe it an apology,” James muttered, looking down. “I don’t think it’s fair to make it wait a year.”

Worrying at his lip, James let out a breath, and Ron felt a spark of something from him. Before he could ask what it was, the body of the chokevine burst with green, tendrils growing out of it and into the air. “Holy fuck,” Ron said, watching as the chokevine grew back before his eyes, tendrils spreading out around them, across the ground, into the river, until it was the size that it had been when Ron had poisoned it. 

“There.” James said, smiling as he dusted his hands off. “You’re all nice and big again, aren’t you?” he cooed, patting the plant. “Thank you for all the help. Me and Ron are okay now, so you don’t have to worry, okay?”

Ron just stared. “You…you could have done that a year ago.”

James nodded, still looking fondly at the moving tendrils of the plant. “I didn’t want to give you an excuse to leave.”

“You…” Ron wasn’t sure what to say. 

“Ron owes you an apology,” James said to the plant. “He feels really bad for hurting you.”

No, Ron didn’t. But James looked at him expectantly so Ron, feeling silly, looked down at the plant. “Um. Sorry, for poisoning you, and stuff. It was for the greater good and you totally started it.” 

James raised an eyebrow. 

Ron cleared his throat. “Okay, maybe I started it. Um. I was really upset and I didn’t know what to do and so, you know. I made a romantic gesture for my boyfriend by killing his favourite plant. But I knew you’d come back and everything! I just…kinda fucked up. But I promise not to kill you ever again. So, sorry. Are we cool?”

Ron felt like an idiot. The chokevine’s response was to wrap tendrils around both his wrists. “Oh no you fucking don’t, you little…”

As Ron tried to pull away, James put a hand on his arm. “It’s saying hello.”

A tiny bit sullen, Ron looked at James, then back down at the plant. He could feel it wrapping around his ankles too. “Hi,” he muttered. “Let me go, please?” He had to admit that he wasn’t getting aggressive vibes from the chokevine. 

Maybe he was going crazy too. 

Instead of letting him go, the chokevine continued being an asshole, working its way up Ron’s arms and legs. “No, really. I’m happy to be friends. But from afar. I’ll be your in-the-house friend.” It kept moving. Ron tried not to move. “Listen, you little asshole…”

“You’re swearing an awful lot,” James mused, and the tone of his voice very much got Ron’s attention. He looked over, found James watching him appreciatively, lips parted a bit.

“Sorry,” Ron muttered. “Can you help me out of here, please?”

“Hm.” James smiled. “Why would I do that? I like you all tied up.”

Ron liked being all tied up too, and that combined with James’s tone of voice was getting him hard. “You planned all of this,” he accused.

“I’d have told you if I was planning it.” James shook his head. “Just seeing you like this gives me good ideas. You should get onto your hands and knees while you can still move.”

Ron held James’s gaze for a moment longer, but ultimately he did what he was told because, well, it _was_ a pretty good idea. He kept his knees spread and his hands flat on the ground, trying to ignore the plant creeping over more and more of his body. It seemed way too interested in Ron, moving a lot faster than it usually did.

“Hold on,” James said, patting the small of Ron’s back and getting up. Ron heard him go back a few steps, and he looked over his shoulder to see James patting the honeynest with one hand. It was a tall plant in four stalks that had large bulbs growing all up and down the stalks. The bulbs opened like mouths and inside was a purple liquid that was useful in spells dealing with aches in the joints, according to James. But it was also toxic to birds and small rodents, which the plant ate, which Ron thought was vaguely terrifying. 

James stuck his hand in one of the pods after a few quiet words to the plant, and the plant moved as it trying to suck him further in, which it was. But he just pulled his hand out, dripping with the purple honey, and said something that was definitely a thank you before trotting back over to Ron and kneeling down. “Here we go.”

“Guess I don’t have to ask what you’re going to do with that,” Ron said, shivering a little in anticipation.

James just patted him again with is clean hand and carefully stuck one slicked up finger into his hole with little resistance. The honey was very slippery and could also be used in small amounts to oil creaky hinges. 

Ron had been making an effort the last year to learn what the plants in the garden did. It hadn’t occurred to him to think about how they might help his sex life, but maybe he should start worrying about that too. 

The finger went in easily enough, partially because the honey was a mild muscle relaxant and partially because Ron was prepared for it. Following Spike’s instructions, they’d been having a lot more sex than Ron remembered them having before. 

He wasn’t complaining. 

“That was easy,” James mused, slowly working another finger in. 

“Your fingers are warm,” Ron whispered, wriggling a little as he got used to the feeling. The chokevine continued to trap him, wrapping around his chest and belly now. It didn’t seem interested in going above his shoulders, though. 

“Is it nice?” James asked as he slid fingers inside. “The honey?”

“Yeah,” Ron said with a nod. “It goes in easier than the regular oil.”

“We could start using it. It’s easy enough to get and we have a lot of it.” James paused, wiggling his fingers around inside Ron for a minute before adding a third, more slowly still. “Someday I’ll get you to put your penis inside a honeynest bulb.”

“You…what?” Ron wasn’t sure he wanted to put any part of him inside something that ate birds and mice. Even if it wasn’t toxic to humans. 

“It’s safe, don’t worry. I think you’ll like it.” James paused as the third finger made its way to join the others. He started exploring as if expecting to find something that wasn’t usually there. “I used to do it when I was younger.” 

That gave Ron pause, even as he tried to keep still with James’s fingers searching. “Really?”

“Yes.”

Ron nearly came at the mental image of James putting his dick in a plant just to see what would happen. Then he narrowed his eyes. “How many of your plants have you had sex with?”

“Most of the ones that are conducive to it,” James admitted. “They were the only ones living with me for a long time. Who was I supposed to do things with, Spike?”

“I guess.” Ron admitted, cutting himself off with a whingy noise when James brushed his prostate and then immediately withdrew his fingers. “I assume you plan to introduce me to them all?”

“Of course.” James was pressing against Ron’s empty hole now, lining up. Ron could hear him slicking the rest of the honey onto himself. “They’re excited. The garden really likes you, Ron. More than it likes me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.” The chokevine was all over Ron now, covering him completely. A lot of it was even wrapped around his dick, squeezing it but not so hard that he couldn’t cum, at least not yet. 

“I didn’t come out here while we were fighting because the plants were mad at me,” James said quietly. “They stopped being mad when we made up.”

“Hey…” Ron hadn’t known that, and now he felt bad. Stupid garden, taking his side when James had been lonely. 

“It’s okay,” James said, leaning down and kissing Ron’s back. “I don’t blame them. Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Don’t cum until I do.” James pressed inside Ron, sliding all the way inside in one long movement that he paired with a satisfied noise that got louder the farther in he got. Ron gave one of his own, breaking into a panting grin when James’s hips pressed against his backside.

The chokevine was scratchy and uncomfortable around him, but Ron liked being a little uncomfortable, so it didn’t bother him at all as James started moving, faster than he normally would. Ron rocked back and forth on his hands and knees as James pressed into him and pulled out, thrust in deeper and pulled out, pushed himself into Ron and out. 

It wasn’t hot outside but it felt like it was under the heat from James and the plant, Ron was sweating, panting, short of breath, he couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe. The chokevine was too tight around his chest, Ron realized, and he couldn’t breathe. “James… I can’t…it’s too tight…”

As he said it, James stopped moving and the chokevine loosened. It didn’t come off his chest, but it was holding him less tightly now. “Thank you.”

James patted Ron’s head from behind. “I didn’t do anything. It heard you.”

“The plant did?” Ron asked, a little incredulous. 

“I told you, it likes you.” James patted him again and resumed moving, hands on Ron’s chest now. 

James didn’t touch Ron, but the plant squeezed him rhythmically, bringing him closer and closer, but he needed that to stop, he wasn’t supposed to cum yet. Ron willed himself not to cum, willed the plant to stop, but it just kept squeezing like it _wanted_ him to get off and get in trouble, which it probably did, asshole, and James just kept moving in and out, and hitting him there in that spot, and…

James cried out quietly as started to cum and Ron’s corresponding cry was one of relief as he let go and started to shoot into the plant, what cum escaped from the leaves all over him splattering the body of the plant underneath him.

While Ron panted and tried to recover, James did the same, pulled back. “There, that was a nice…oh.”

“Oh?” Ron had heard that ‘oh’ once before. He knew what it meant. “You’re stuck in the plant, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” James admitted. “I guess it doesn’t want us to separate yet.” He pushed back in, leaned down and hugged Ron from behind. James carefully manoeuvred them both so they were lying on their sides, James still behind Ron, fully buried inside him. Ron could hear the plant rustling, which sounded like music. 

“That might be the first good idea this thing has had,” Ron muttered, smiling as they lay there in the bed of leaves.

“Hm, don’t start being mean again now,” James told him, moving a little, experimental. “I’m going to go again.”

“Good,” Ron smiled, nodding his assent.

“No cumming this time.”

“Aww…and you’re calling me mean?”

“You were swearing a lot, remember.”

“Oh.” Ron scowled at the chokevine. That had been the plant’s fault. “Right. I guess I was.”

James snickered a little, and he started moving, gently, slowly, the plant stopping him from moving too much. It was nice, a nice followup to the first time. James held Ron around the middle as he moved, keeping him in place, reminding him that he was safe. It was nice. 

It was slower, longer, though Ron couldn’t have counted how long if he’d wanted to. Time seemed to blend as he lay there, wrapped in James and the plant, enjoying both of them. He did start to feel close to another orgasm, but he held on, pushed the feeling down, and not much after that James went tense behind him, let out a small moan and shot inside Ron again, arms tightening around him before he went slack, holding him easily. “I love you,” he muttered.

“I love you too,” Ron said back, feeling that and nothing else. 

The two of them lay there in the plant for a long time, or at least what felt like a long time, not quite sleeping, just enjoying the moment. There was a nice buzz that Ron felt, one that made him want to just close his eyes and float for a while, so that was what he did, held there by James, safe in the knowledge that they’d both still be here when he got back.

If only because the chokevine wasn’t letting them go. 

After some time, though, James sighed behind him. “Alright,” he said, moving away from Ron, pulling out. The chokevine moved away, let him go easily, and James stood up. 

Ron tried to follow him, found himself held in place. “Um…”

James smiled down at him. 

“How did you get out?”

“Magic?” James cocked his head. “Or maybe Charlie just isn’t finished playing with you.”

“Charlie?”

James blinked, went a bit red. “I named it when I was a kid. Anyway. I have work to do in the garden.”

“I can’t really help you like this,” Ron protested, struggling a little. His arms were now bound to his sides, though, and his legs together. He could feel James’s cum leaking out of him and clenched a little, trying to keep it in. 

“No, you can just stay there and play with Charlie while I work,” James said, crossing his arms. “How do you feel about that?”

Ron hesitated, heat rising in his face as he thought about that. “O…okay. I guess I can do that.”

“Good.” James brightened, nodded. “Let me know if you can’t, but don’t worry, I’ll be out here the whole time. Oh, except I’m going to pop inside just for two minutes, is that okay? I promise I’ll be right back.”

“Um, sure.” Two minutes should be fine. It wasn’t like James was punishing him and he wouldn’t leave Ron alone if he thought it was dangerous. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“I should hope so.” James smiled down at him again, then turned and quickly headed over into the house. 

Exactly two minutes later by Ron’s count, he heard James returning and looked up to see him, something in his hand and a bit of a mischievous smile on his face. “What are you doing?” Ron asked.

James moved behind him, crouched a little. “Giving you a toy to play together with Charlie with,” he said, hand on Ron’s thigh. Something pressed against Ron’s entrance and Ron gasped as it slid inside, halting as it got thicker. James gave a push and it went all the way in, and then Ron realized what it was. The jiggletuft pod was moving, bouncing around inside him, making Ron shift and squirm, trying not to make noise.

“There we go,” James stood, wiping his hand on his pants, and looked down at Ron. “God, you’re pretty. Feel free to cum as many times as Charlie lets you.”

As if in answer, Charlie squeezed Ron’s dick again. “Ah…”

James nudged Ron with his foot. “What do you say?”

“Th-thank you…” Ron panted, feeling like he might shoot soon already. He’d forgotten how much he liked the pod inside him. 

“That’s better. I should be done working in a few hours.” James tilted his head a little. “Though with how cute you are, I may need to take a few breaks to come over and play with you some more.”

“Ahh…” Ron didn’t know if it was just the pressure or if James’s voice helped, but he started to cum again, shooting into the leaves with a cry as the vines briefly tightened around his body.

James got down on his hands and knees when Ron was done, and kissed him on the cheek. “You two have fun now.”

“We will…” Ron panted. Neither the pod or Charlie had stopped, not caring that he was sensitive.

“Good.” James stood, started to move away. “I’ll be watching.”

With that in mind, Ron closed his eyes and focused on getting to know his new friend.


	39. Sudden Guests Can Really Just Throw off Your Whole Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ron and James can't stay away from the world forever.

“Ng.”

“Tired?”

“A little.”

“You could rest.”

“I just got up three hours ago.”

“I didn’t say sleep.”

“I could sleep.”

“Or you could rest.”

James gave Ron a look. “I’ll be fine. I’m just sick of spellbooks.”

“Are witches allowed to be sick of spellbooks?”

“I can do what I want. I’m a rebel.” James sighed, put his heavy book on the table. “I can’t find anything in here that’s going to help with the roots.”

Ron nodded. James had been trying to find a way to put the forest around the house back to normal for the last little while. That wall of tree roots was a bit imposing. “What’s the problem? It seems like it shouldn’t be that hard.” If James could kill the chokevine with a snap and bring it back with a touch, it shouldn’t be that big a deal to shrink some crazy trees. 

“It is,” James said, rubbing his eyes. “Growth only works one way. It’s extremely difficult to encourage plants to shrink without hurting them, and I don’t know how to do it for something that big. I might have to ask Grandma for help.”

Obviously James was planning on doing this without killing the trees, which Ron figured was fair enough, since they were his friends. “Let me know if I can do anything.”

James nodded. “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” he said.

Ron was sweeping. “Eventually the floor will be clean.”

A chuckle. “I meant being there. That’s all I…” James trailed off, looking up at the window with hand raised as if to strike something. 

“Something out there?” Ron asked, going still. 

James nodded. “Get dressed. I’m not sure what it is. Someone’s about to teleport in.”

Ron dropped the broom, headed for the bedroom quickly with James behind him. “How do you know they’re about to teleport in? Did they knock?”

It was at times like these that Ron remembered he didn’t know how magic worked at all. He felt light on his feet, and not in a good way.

“No. Someone is divining us, and I can feel a push behind it. It means they’re trying to find the door so they can open it.” James smiled. “Sorry, I know that doesn’t make sense.”

“No, I get it,” Ron said, stepping into his pants as quickly as he could. “You’re good at dumbing it down for me.”

James made a face as he changed into his coat. “That’s not it. It’s not about smart and dumb, just what words you use to explain it. Listen, if they’re going to attack us, they’re going to use magic. Let me handle it.”

Ron took a breath. He didn’t like that. “Okay.” He couldn’t fight a magic practitioner and he knew it. “Do you think it’s an attack?”

“I don’t know. But I know whoever’s coming in isn’t a witch, which means it’s not somebody I know.” 

Ron nodded, and the two of them finished dressing. Sweat was beaded on James’s head. “Are you worried?”

“No, I’m just keeping them out until we’re ready is all,” James gave a smile. “I’ll let them in now.” He made a gesture, and though Ron didn’t hear or see anything, James frowned. “Oops.”

“Oops?”

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said, heading out to the main room and for the front door, to grab his staff and Ron’s sword, which he handed off.

“What wasn’t?”

“They ended up in the river. They’ve got bad aim.”

Ron chuckled. “Let’s hope they’re not too mad.”

James nodded, and held the door open for Ron.  
They went outside, and headed for the garden. There were two people on the bank of the river, climbing out. The water that seemed to be everywhere suggested that maybe whichever of them was the magic-user—maybe both were—had been surprised by the wet landing. 

There were two of them, a dark, southern guy about Ron’s age helping a younger boy out of the water. He was dressed in black and grey leather, a sword in a nice scabbard belted at his hip. The boy was in fancy velvets in crossing patterns, dark blue and red. He was cursing. “Probably did that on purpose. I’m going to fucking…”

“Sam,” the older guy said, looking up at James and Ron, who’d come to a halt about ten paces from them. 

“Watch out,” Ron told them, watching as the younger boy straightened, took a calming breath. He was looking at the ground. “That plant there will trap you if you’re not careful.”

The guy in black looked down at Charlie the chokevine and took a step to their left, gently urging the boy, Sam, that way as well, towards the ficklebushes. 

James was looking right at Sam, which Ron guessed answered the question of which of them had the magic. “This isn’t how I’m used to receiving visitors.”

Sam had a skin tone a bit darker than James’s, a pointed face and longish hair that hung in his eyes, which Ron saw now weren’t focused on anything. He was slight and the way his wet clothes hung to him made him seem more so, but he was broad-shouldered and long-legged in a way that made Ron assume he’d be tall when he was done growing. He was quiet for a minute before answering, and his friend gave him a subtle squeeze on the arm. “No doubt. Are you Joceyln’s son?”

James blinked, and went still in a very noticeable way. “Yes. Who are you?”

Sam smiled. “My father was friends with your mother.”

“Solomon,” James said quietly. “You’re Solomon’s son.” Ron put his hand on his sword, noticed Sam’s friend do the same. James didn’t stop him. 

“That’s right. I want to talk to you. I think we have some things in common.” Sam was standing very still as well, Ron noticed, but his fingers were twitching a little. 

James watched him for a minute, then looked at Ron, obviously thinking hard. “Okay,” he finally said. “You look cold. Why don’t you come inside and we can have some tea to warm you up.”

It wasn’t a question, and he turned and headed for the house without letting Sam answer. Ron followed him, and Sam and his friend, after a second of whispering, followed. “What’s going on?” Ron asked quietly. 

“I’m not sure. But he’s not here to attack or he would have already.” James bit his lip. “I’m going to ask you to stay out here while I talk to him.”

“James, no.” Ron shook his head.

James nodded, though. “I don’t want him near you. And you can keep his bodyguard there under control while we talk. It’ll be fine, he’s not going to hurt me.”

Ron would have protested, but James made that last line into a promise, so he nodded. “Okay. But yell if you need me.”

“I will,” James promised. “He has a sword too, maybe you two can bond over that.”

“You mean I can make sure we know which of us is a better fighter?” Ron asked.

“That too.” They got to the door and James smiled at Sam, opening it. “Come on in. Ron, why don’t you stay out here with Sam’s friend and show him around?”

“Sure,” Ron said, nodding as if they hadn’t already decided that. Appearances mattered, after all. 

“I don’t…”

“It’s fine, Henry,” Sam said, waving his friend into silence. He put a hand on the doorframe and stepped carefully into the house. James followed him in and, with a smile at Ron, shut the door.

It was quiet for a second out here, a stillness coming between Ron and Henry, and Ron took that moment of stillness to get a good look at Henry, try and get a read on him. He was a strong-looking guy, muscular in a way that looked built to Ron. His clothes looked too tight and though he wasn’t moving at the moment, he gave off the impression that he could be. His sword was too long for him. He was looking worried as he watched the door. 

“James isn’t going to hurt him,” Ron promised, giving a reassuring smile. “If he wanted to, you’d know by now.” He hooked his thumb at the wall of tree roots. 

“He did that?” Henry asked, eyeing them. He had a southern accent too, thicker than Ron had heard before.

“Last time he wanted to hurt someone. I’m Ron.”

“Henry. I’m not worried about Sam getting hurt.” 

He probably should be. “You’re worried that he’ll hurt someone?”

Henry was quiet, and when it was clear he had no plans to answer, Ron shrugged. “Want me to give you a tour? Though you’ve already seen most of it. The garden is there, and there’s some grass and stuff over here. Lots of trees.”

Henry snorted a bit. “It’s a nice place.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, heading over for the lawn, Henry following. 

“Just you guys out here?”

“In this house, yes. Except when James’s faery friend stays over. James’s family is around,” he said vaguely, waving his hand at the forest. Not his fault if Henry decided to assume there were more than four of them. Though if he and Sam knew James’s mother, they might already know that. “And there are some centaurs and goblins and what have you in the forest.”

“But no other people?” Henry asked.

“No other humans,” Ron corrected. “Where did you two magic in from?” Henry was a southerner through and through, and Sam had some of the colouring and the eye shape that one of his parents must have been, but if they could teleport, they could be from anywhere. 

“We, uh…live on the Fury Plateau,” Henry said, sounding unsure. 

Ron nodded. So he’d been right. Actually, that was just south of the forest here, though a good distance and with a big lake and some mountains in between if he wasn’t mistaken. “That was on my list of places to visit when I was younger,” he said, conversational. 

“I wouldn’t,” Henry muttered.

That was unusual for someone from there. “I probably won’t, now. I left home to see the big world, got as far as James’s place and stopped.” He smiled. 

Henry looked at him for a second. “Me too,” he admitted. “My big adventure stopped when I met Sam.”

“Funny how that happens, huh?” Ron asked, stretching. “You love him, right?” It was kind of obvious. 

But Henry made an affronted face, shaking his head. “What? No, God. Sam’s…” He stopped himself from whatever he’d been about to say. He sounded almost disgusted.

“Sorry,” Ron said, surprised. “I just thought…well, it doesn’t matter. My bad.” Henry had been so careful in the way he touched Sam, had been so worried about leaving him alone. 

“It’s fine, I get it. But I…I work for him. That’s all.”

That was a lie if Ron had ever heard one. “Work for him doing what?”

“Same stuff you do working for James, probably.”

“I do a lot of gardening,” Ron joked. 

That got a smile out of Henry. “Maybe not the exact same stuff.”

Henry was uncomfortable talking about this, Ron could tell. And that was strange, and it had Ron wondering. He’d obviously misinterpreted some of their earlier signals, and he wondered what exactly they meant now. If they weren’t together, it must be something else. 

“You want to spar?” Ron asked him, gesturing at the field of grass. The training dummy was there, but Ron ignored it. “I don't know about you, but I never get any real people to practice with out here.”

Henry gave half a smile. “Sure. Go easy on me, I’m a bit out of practice.”

Ron nodded, drew his sword. “I don’t have any practice swords, unfortunately. We’ll just have to be careful.”

“I know a thing or two about being careful,” Henry said, looking over Ron’s shoulder. “What’s that?”

Ron glanced, saw his training dummy getting up, moving to the side. He blinked at it. “My usual partner. Must be moving out of our way.” He hadn’t known it would do that.

“Where you’d get an anatomically correct training partner?” Henry asked, apparently amused. “Or at least, anatomically correct to the shoulder.”

“Long story,” Ron muttered, readying his stance and pretending not to blush. At least Henry didn’t know that was _his_ dick on full anatomically correct display. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Henry drew his blade as well, moving his legs apart. “Let’s go.”

Henry was good, probably a little better than Ron, if Ron was honest with himself. But he wasn’t wrong about being out of practice, or at least that was how it seemed. His reaction time was a bit slow, and every now and then he’d overcorrect by a mile to avoid a lunge, but he moved better than Ron did, for the most part. Ron chalked part of it up to the fact that he was unused to fighting in clothes and was finding his movement more restricted than he’d expected. He’d have to do something about that. Henry was also left-handed, which put Ron at a disadvantage. 

But Ron didn’t want to make excuses. Henry was good, and that was that. 

They didn’t get to spar for very long. After just a few minutes, they broke apart, panting. “You’re good,” Ron told him.

“Thanks. I was well trained. So are you.”

“Thanks.” Ron had only just warmed up, which he suspected was true of Henry as well. But behind Henry, the door to the house clicked open and Sam stepped out, James following him. “Henry,” Sam called.

The way Henry stiffened, quickly composing himself before turning, got Ron’s attention. “Here,” he answered, starting over there. 

“We’re leaving.”

“Okay. Nice to meet you,” Henry said to Ron. 

“You too. Henry.”

“Yeah?”

Ron lowered his voice, eyes on Sam now. “Is he hurting you?”

Something unreadable crossed Henry’s face. He shook his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re afraid of him.” Ron was sure of that now. That was what all the other signals he’d been getting had meant. 

Henry got a stern look on his face. “I wouldn’t still be with him if I was, Ron.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

“Bye, Ron.”

And Henry walked over to Sam, putting his hand on Sam’s arm. “You got what you needed?”

“Yeah, let’s just go.” Sam sounded irritable, and he pulled Henry away from the house, hand moving rapidly. 

“Nice to meet you, Sam.” James said, staff in his hand. “Come back sometime.”

Sam elected not to answer. He waved, and there was a twist in the air and he and Henry were gone. 

James watched the spot where they’d disappeared as Ron came over to stand beside him. Then he took a breath, held his staff up and slammed the butt of it into the ground. Ron felt a ripple move through everything. “What was that?”

“A new ward. I never want that to happen again.” James sounded tired. Tired and worried. 

“What happened? Did he try to hurt you?”

“Yes, but he changed his mind. He wanted something from me. I gave it to him, though I don’t think he realized it.”

“What did he want?”

“Help. The stone that his father had is bound to him, and he’s scared of it. I don’t blame him. His father’s dead, and it sounds like a lot of his allies are pressing on Sam to get him to do what they want.”

“I assume that would be bad,” Ron said, following James into the house.

“Yes, I assume so. But my impression of Sam is that it would be just as bad to let him do whatever he wants.”

“He’s hurting Henry.”

“He told you that?” 

“No. He just is.”

James nodded, setting his staff haphazardly against the wall. “Get me the focus.”

“Sure.” Ron got on a stool, got it down and put it on the table. 

James didn’t waste any time. “Grandma,” he said into it.

Not a second later, the reflective surface of the copper plate was replaced with James’s grandmother’s living room. “James. Unusual for you to call me. Can I guess it has something to do with your visitor?”

Ron didn’t even waste time wondering how she’d known. She probably knew everything. 

“Solomon’s son,” James told her. “The late Solomon.”

“Ah. Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. I’m calling a Coven meeting.”

Ron felt his eyebrows creep up and his stomach drop. Obviously this was even more serious than Ron had realized if James was going that far immediately. 

He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Josephine was clearly surprised through the focus. “Very well. I’ll contact the members and set up…”

“I’ll contact them, don’t worry about that,” James said, smiling at her. “I’m just warning you. I have to give two weeks’ notice, is that right?”

“Ten days. We shortened it after the Endwann fiasco.” 

James nodded. “I’ll see you in ten days, then. Sorry to spring this on you.”

“It’s fine, James. I’m glad to see you taking a proactive role.”

James smiled, glancing at Ron. “Ignoring my problems has never done anything but make them worse. I have to call the Coven.”

“I shall see you soon, then. Sometime it would be nice if you visited without bringing the entire Coven with you,” Josephine said, in a chiding tone.

“I’ll stay for a few days after the meeting. Love you.”

“I love you too, dear.” 

James waved a hand over the focus and it went back to reflecting the kitchen ceiling. He took a breath. “God,” he whispered. “What am I doing? Cameron.” 

Just as quickly as Josephine, Cameron’s aged face came into view. “James, this is a surprise,” she said, sounding entirely unsurprised.

“I know, I know. I’m calling an emergency Coven meeting in ten days.”

James didn’t sound panicked or worried or even upset, but Ron was slowly getting to all of those things. All of this was extremely out of character.

“My goodness,” Cameron arched an eyebrow expertly. “Who died?”

“Solomon.”

A frown. “And where did you hear that?” She actually sounded like she hadn’t known that. 

“From his son. I’ll explain at the meeting. I have to call the others.”

“Very well. I shall see you in ten days, James.”

James nodded, but Cameron was already gone from the focus. He sighed. “That was the easy one. The rest are going to want answers.”

“Give them.”

“I will at the meeting,” James said, looking up and smiling at Ron. He put his hand over Ron’s on the table. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine.”

“You’re not acting like everything’s fine.” Ron couldn’t keep the worry off his face or out of his voice.

James nodded, squeezing Ron’s hand now. “It’s important, but the world’s not ending or anything. I have to tell the Coven about Solomon, and that Sam has that stone bound to him.”

Ron gave James a look. “You could write them a letter. What’s this really about?”

James smiled, reached up and pulled a flower petal out of Ron’s hair. “I can’t keep anything from you, can I? I’m worried someone on the Coven was working with Solomon and my mom. Something Sam said to me. Suspicion is dangerous, so I want to find out either way. A meeting is the fastest way to do that.”

“Okay.” Ron nodded. The prospect that someone on the Coven was secretly evil seemed like it occasioned a little more concern to Ron, but James seemed to be on top of it. “What can I do to help?”

“The same thing you always do,” James said, giving Ron a kiss. “Just be here for me.”

“Always.”

“Then we’ll be fine. I have to call Cassiopeia.”

Ron nodded, moved his hand so he could grip James’s in it. “I’ll stay here until you’re done.”

“Thank you, Ron.” James gave him a pure smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d do fine.”

“Maybe. Cassiopeia.”

It was only a few seconds before she appeared on the plate. “James, this is unlike you. Can I assume the world is ending?”

James gave Ron a side-smile and a hand squeeze. “Not yet.”


	40. Pushing Limits Can Be a Rewarding Experience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we're all expecting plot stuff after the last chapter, but a brief sexual interlude first, and then plot in the next chapter, promise. :)

“Hey, James?”

“Yes?”

“I think you know what I’m going to ask.”

“I think I do too. Ask anyway.”

“Please don’t say no?”

“You haven’t asked the question yet, Ron.”

“Right.” Ron sighed. “Can I jerk off? Please?”

James hadn’t let him touch himself in nearly a week. Ron knew better than to pester, but he was getting a bit desperate here.

James looked up at him from the table. “You’re just going to keep asking me until I let you, aren’t you?”

“No…” Ron lied, looking away. “I’ve only asked you twice today.”

And five times yesterday. His balls were starting to get sore.

James sighed. “Come ask me really nicely and I’ll think about it.”

Eager, Ron came over from the counter, boner wagging as he moved. He got down on his knees in front of James, who turned his chair away from the table to face Ron. Ron looked up at him, hands clasped in front of himself, eyes wide. “Please?” he asked. “It would really mean a lot to me and I know you’re doing it for my own good, but I really need to do it, please. I…I’ve been really good all week, and I promise I’m going to keep behaving no matter what. I just…please, sir?” Ron’s voice shuddered a little at that last part, and he looked up at James with his best puppy eyes.

James smiled at him, patted Ron’s hair. “Good boy, you’re getting much better at begging. Okay, you can touch yourself.”

Ron beamed. “Thank you!” He knew that James would let him eventually. He wasn’t here to torment Ron. He was just pushing Ron’s limits a bit, that was all. And reminding him that everything was okay. That Sam’s visit and the coming Coven meeting weren’t a big deal. If he could still take the time to play games with Ron, it couldn’t be that bad. 

As much as Ron got that and appreciated it, he’d appreciate it more once he’d had an orgasm. 

Another pat on the head. “Hold on just a second, I’ll be right back. Stay right there.” 

Ron did as he was told, not moving from his kneeling position on the floor as James got up and went into the bedroom. He came back a minute later with the little wooden box that they kept their toys in, and Ron watched it carefully, biting his lip in anticipation. 

James put the box on the table, opened and considered the contents for a minute, before pulling out that little length of enchanted chokevine. Ron felt his heart sink a little. “James…”

“Have you changed your mind about wanting to touch yourself?” James asked, amused.

Ron swallowed, shaking his head. “No. But…”

“I didn’t think so.” James handed Ron the clipping. “Put it on.”

“Yes, sir,” Ron pouted, doing as he was told. James patted him on the cheek and went over to the cupboards, coming back with a small hourglass as the chokevine tightened around Ron, making him whimper. 

“You’ll touch yourself until this runs out,” James said, setting it on the table, prepared to flip it over.

It was a fifteen-minute hourglass that James used for making potions. Ron was grateful that at least he hadn’t taken out one of the bigger ones. “What are you going to do?” Ron asked, shifting uncomfortably.

“Watch. You can start now.” James flipped the hourglass over.

Ron had promised that he’d keep behaving, so he reached down, gripping his hard-on in a hand and stroking it, trying to go slowly. He was going to be at this for a while. True to his word, James just sat there in the chair and looked down at Ron, watching him masturbate with a smile on his face. 

Ron kept a slow, steady pace, telling himself over and over that going faster wouldn’t help even as other parts of him hollered that he needed to cum and he would if he’d just speed up. He tried not to watch the hourglass, but he snuck peeks at it every so often, only to be dismayed by how little time had gone by. James must be slowing it down somehow.

But no, James wouldn’t do that to him. He wasn’t unfair. He had told Ron to do this because he knew Ron could handle it, because he wanted Ron to prove to himself that he could. So Ron would do that. He could do it. 

He sped up just a little, figuring it couldn’t hurt. His breath coming a little faster now, Ron watched James, trying to smile at him as he kept going. James was hard in his pants but not touching himself, which Ron didn’t understand. How did he have so much self-control? He was so amazing. Ron would be touching himself in James’s position, but that was why James was the one in charge. 

Ron watched James for a long time, just thinking about how much he loved him, and before he realized it he was going faster, so much faster. James was going to let him cum at the end of this, so it was probably okay. James hadn’t actually said that, but he would. He was nice. 

That thought broke Ron’s self-control and he made a pathetic noise as he started stroking himself wildly, bringing his other hand down to help as he bent forward a little on his knees. It was fine, the time must be almost up.

Ron glanced at the hourglass, saw that it was only halfway empty.

The sound that escaped Ron’s lips at that point was akin to a sob, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He was too far gone to slow down now. He kept masturbating furiously, body wracked with surges of almost-pleasure that couldn’t be realized, the chokevine tight around his dick, staying on his knees because falling was too hard.

He was going to do this, he was going to make James proud of him. That was the only thought that Ron was entertaining, that if he did this, James would be happy, would praise him, would call him good and maybe pat his head again. He could do this, for James. He was going to show James that his trust hadn’t been misplaced. He was going to do it.

Ron wasn’t trying to be quiet anymore, knowing that James would be okay with that. He vocalized his discomfort as he touched himself, whinges and sobs and other noises filling the air. Tears started to run down his cheeks. He could do this, he could do it.

He wanted to cum so bad.

Ron got lost in a world of searing white, his body at the centre of an earthquake that never quite managed to happen, and he knew he was going to be here forever now, his body was going to stick like this, he was…

“Ron.” 

Ron’s eyes snapped open at James’s voice, bringing him back. The light from the window hurt his eyes. The room was swimming a bit. James was smiling at him, red in the face. “You’re done. Time’s up. You can stop now.”

Ron nodded, not really hearing James until a second later. When he did, he had to pry his hands off his dick. They were cramped and stuck in position, and he flexed them a little. “Did…was I good?”

“You were very good, Ron,” James assured him, kissing Ron. “You’re a good boy, such a good boy.”

Ron nodded, tearing up again, and he hugged James. “Thank you,” he whispered.

James hugged him back, patting Ron’s back until his breathing went back to normal and he was mostly back in the house instead of in his head. “Now,” James said, pulling back and kissing Ron on the forehead. “There we go. Can you keep playing or do we need to stop?”

Ron swallowed, and gave a nod. “I can keep going.” Maybe not if James was going to make him do that again. 

“Okay.” James stood up. “Ask me again.”

“Can I cum now?”

“No.” James said, smiling down at Ron. Ron whimpered. “Not now. At bedtime, you can. You’re going to wear that,” he pointed at Ron’s dick, and then pulled out of the box the jiggletuft pod, “and this for the rest of the day. And you’re not going to complain. When we go to bed, I’ll take them off and let you cum, sound good?”

Ron thought about that. He could do it, it was only one day. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.” Ron nodded, slowly at first and then more confidently. His dick was sore, but it was only one day. “I can do that.”

“Good boy. If you can’t you’ll use your word to tell me, got it?”

Ron took from that that James wasn’t planning to be nice if he ended up complaining. He nodded. “I will.”

James nodded, and he gestured for Ron to turn around. Ron did and bent over, presenting his butt to James. James prodded him with an oiled finger, then slid the pod inside Ron, patting him when it was in. “I’ll take it out later and put more oil in, I don’t want it to hurt you.”

“Thank you,” Ron said, struggling to control himself. He wanted to explode. It was going to take all of his willpower to get through a whole day of this. But he could do it.

James helped Ron stand, and patted him on the cheek. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t know you could handle it. If you’re really good and don’t complain, I’ll reward you tonight. I’ll let you decide what we do, and you can cum as many times as you want.”

Ron shuddered, dick twitching a little. “I won’t complain,” he promised.

“I know. You wouldn’t have anyway. I just feel like rewarding you.” James kissed Ron on the lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Come on,” James said, pulling on Ron’s hand. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

Ron followed him outside, feeling strong.


	41. The Family Home Is a Collection of Memories

“Ron.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop here for a second?”

“Sure, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I just want to stop for a minute.”

“You’ve already extended stopping time from a second to a minute.”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

Ron grinned. “Sorry.”

“No, you aren’t,” James told him, leaning against a tree and glancing in the direction of his grandmother’s house. They’d been walking all morning and were almost there. “You’re never really sorry.”

“I am,” Ron protested. 

“You’re always hoping I’ll punish you, at least a little.”

Ron made a bit of a face at that. “Of course not. I’m always trying hard to be on my best behaviour.”

“You know if you want a spanking, you can just ask.” 

“I know.” Ron paused, trying to figure out how best to put what he was thinking. “But it’s more fun if I can push you, just enough to get you to do it to me.”

“Within the parameters of the game,” James agreed, nodding. “Do you find it embarrassing when I spank you?”

“Uh…a little,” Ron admitted, colouring. “Makes me feel like a little kid who misbehaved.”

“Hm.” James smiled. “You like being embarrassed a little, though.”

“I do.”

“Next time I think I’ll make you ask me for a spanking. Won’t that be embarrassing—having to ask me nicely for something that’ll embarrass you.”

“Compound embarrassment,” Ron muttered, looking away. He liked the idea, though, so he nodded. “Okay. Next time I want a spanking I’ll ask you.”

“I won’t make you do it all the time,” James told him, looking up at the leaves on the tree, which were slowly turning colours. “Just this time for now. I like the part of the game where you push me too.” 

“I know,” Ron said, smiling again. “Or you’d never let me get away with it.”

“That’s right.” James sighed, looking up the road. “We should get going. Grandma’s expecting us.”

Ron nodded, taking James’s hand. “What did you want to stop for?”

“I was tired.”

“It’s a long walk,” Ron agreed, as they headed down the road again. 

“Better than teleporting. I hate teleporting.”

“It wasn’t fun last time.”

“It never is. It’s like being sucked through a tube when Spike does it.”

Ron looked at James sideways. “Is it different when someone else does it?”

James cocked a smile. “Sometimes. Depends on how they are with different kinds of magic. When I do it is like sliding down a muddy hill that never ends.”

“That doesn’t sound fun either,” Ron said. “I didn’t know you could teleport.”

James squeezed his hand. “I don’t like to. It’s exhausting and walking doesn’t take that long. I do hope that there’s lunch when we get there, though.”

Ron agreed. 

When they got to Josephine’s glen—notably warmer than the surrounding area—they were met by Spike, who looked agitated. “Turns out I’m still banished,” he reported. “But hey, stay of execution since it was your fault I came back.”

“I told you that you could stay home,” James reminded him with a smile. “And the king probably forgot he banished you, which means you insulted him again, didn’t you?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Not insulted. It’s not insulting to point out that someone is a fat, impotent old bastard who couldn’t hump his way out of a flower. At least, it’s not an insult if it’s true.”

James sighed. “You need to learn to get along with him.”

“Nah, he needs to learn to get over the fact that I dumped his son’s scrawny ass years ago. He wasn’t that good a lay,” Spike confided in Ron. 

“I…didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, but we’re buddies, and buddies talk about their sex lives. Speaking of which, how’s the sex going? You’d better be having a lot of it like I said.”

“We are,” James assured him. “But maybe you and Ron can talk about that later. We’ve been walking all morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, the old lady made you lunch. Don’t think I don’t see you brushing me off, kid,” Spike said, giving James the eye. “I’m not forgetting about this.”

“Okay,” James said, smiling in that noncommittal way he had. “I’m going to go talk to Grandma now,” he added, nodding at the house, where Josephine was emerging. The big tree stump table and chairs were already set up for the Coven meeting in two days, and she set some plates on the table. 

“I’m watching you,” Spike told James, darting away. 

James sighed. “We’re going to have to have a chat with him about boundaries, I think.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, following James over.

“Hello, James,” Josephine said, taking him in her arms and kissing him on the cheek. “You look good.”

“Thank Ron for that,” James said, smiling. “How are you?”

“Better once the damned Coven leaves us alone,” Josephine told him. “But we’ll talk about that later. I made you lunch. Hello, Ron, good to see you.”

“You too, ma’am.” Ron smiled. “The food looks wonderful.”

“Don’t think compliments will get you out of cooking for the meeting. You did it once and now I know I don’t have to.”

Ron chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. I don’t mind. I just want to help.” He had some recipes he wanted to try out on the Coven instead of on James. 

“Can we…” James looked at the table. “Could I visit Grandpa, just for a minute before we eat? I want to take Ron.”

Josephine’s smile was replaced with something more sombre. “Of course,” she said, stepping back. “I’ll wait here and we’ll catch up after.”

“Thank you, Grandma.” James kissed her and then took Ron’s hand again, leading him around the side of the house. “Sorry if this is a bit morbid,” he said as they walked. Near the treeline there were four stone markers set up. “I just…”

Ron squeezed James’s hand. “It’s not morbid. I’m glad you’re going. And that you’re taking me.”

James nodded, didn’t say anything until they stood in front of the four stones. James sat down in the grass, and Ron sat with him. “This is my grandfather,” James said, setting his staff down. He pointed at the grave on the far right. “His name was Joel. He was…he carved me this staff, for my birthday.” As he spoke, flowers were sprouting around him, slowly, hesitantly. “My mother killed him when he tried to stop her.”

Ron covered James’s hand with his, not saying anything. James pointed at the next grave in the row. “That’s my uncle Joey. I didn’t know him very well. He laughed a lot and liked to sit in trees. And…” he skipped the next grave, pointed at the one on the far left. “That’s his wife, Aunt Delilah. She was from up north somewhere, a clan of witches near the northern coast. She could tell the future by looking at stones. My parents killed them to kidnap their baby.” 

James pointed at the last gravestone now. The flowers were everywhere. “That’s the baby. Mom killed her after I bound the stone to myself.” There were tears on his cheeks. “She and I had the same birthday. We…were going to be really powerful together. She was only a day old.”

“What was her name?” Ron asked quietly. 

“She didn’t have one,” James whispered. “Aunt Delilah said it was bad luck to name a baby right after she was born. She…” He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting tears.

Ron moved closer, hugged James. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay.” Ron…couldn’t think of anything sadder than dying without a name. 

“I…” James got himself under control quickly, letting Ron hold him without complaint. “I’m never going to be completely okay. They killed part of me that night, I think. But…” He smiled at Ron, wiping his face. “I’m better, than I was. I’m mostly okay.” 

“I think that would make them happy,” Ron said, nodding. His own eyes were wet with tears too. 

“I think so too.” James sniffed, nodded. “I think they’d like you too. Anyway, I just…I just wanted you to meet them, that’s all.”

“Thank you,” Ron said, kissing James’s hand. “I think I’d have liked them too. The flowers are pretty.”

James looked a bit embarrassed. “That wasn’t me…sort of. It just happens whenever I sit here. Like your hair. Just a reaction to my power, I guess.”

“Maybe,” Ron said, brushing a red flower thoughtfully. “Or maybe it’s them trying to make you smile.”

James snorted a laugh, reached down and picked a flower, stuck it behind Ron’s ear. “Maybe. Come on,” he said, grabbing his staff and pushing to his feet. “Let’s go eat lunch.”

“Okay,” Ron followed, but stopped a few feet from the graves. “Hey, James?”

“Yes?”

Ron pulled James back into the hug, held him there for a second. “I love you.”

James was silent for a moment before he hugged back. “I love you too, Ron. Thank you for coming with me.”

“I’ll always come with you, James,” Ron promised. “You know that. Always.”

“Okay,” James whispered. “I think they’d like that too. Knowing that I’ll always have you.”

“So do I,” Ron agreed, holding James close. “I think they’d like that too.”


	42. Often the Answers to Mysteries Are Hidden in the Smallest Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Featuring the return of the Grand Coven.

“You had him…”

“Not really.”

“You _had_ him in your house, in your territory, and you let him go?”

“What was I supposed to do? Kidnap him and tie him to my kitchen table?”

“That was going to be your only chance to put a stop to him, James. He’s not going to come back to you.”

“Well, I bloody hope not,” James agreed, nodding patiently at Timothy Lariat, who was getting redder and redder as he blustered. “Having him in my house was a bit harrowing. He thought about attacking me.”

“Thought about it?”

“He reconsidered. Wisely.” James had told Ron that Sam had made as if to attack him during their talk, but that James had convinced him not to bother. Ron wondered exactly what that meant, but James was unhurt, which was all he cared about. 

“And next time he decides to attack you,” Timothy said, leaning forward and nearly putting his arm in the soup that Ron had made, “he’ll do it from afar and you won’t have the chance to retaliate!”

James smiled at Timothy. “If you knew me better, you’d know that I don’t retaliate, Timothy. Solomon is dead, and he’s the one we were worried about. Sam is just a scared kid who can’t control his own power.”

“And when he can?” Jezebel Threefinger asked, tapping the table. “He won’t be scared forever. People rarely are.”

“You’d be surprised,” James told her. “I don’t think we should attack him unprovoked. He’s never done anything to us.” 

“ _Yet_ ,” Timothy emphasized. “He hasn’t done anything to us yet. But he will.”

“And even if he doesn’t,” Cassiopeia added, “we can’t just let him have the stone over there at the bottom of the world like that. It doesn’t belong to him.”

“Anymore than ours belongs to me, I know,” James said, and Ron frowned at him. “But we’re not within our rights to take it from him either. Contact the other sorcerers. He might be more willing to work with them than his predecessor.”

“I wonder,” Cameron mused. “When Solomon died.”

“Sam didn’t say,” James told her, watching carefully.

“The reason I wonder is that there was an attack on the northern capital not long ago. An attempt was made to access the mage’s Vault where they keep their stone, by a man possessed by a centipede. A similar attempt was made last year.” Cameron affixed James with a look. “If Solomon ordered that, fine. But if Sam did, then we can’t say he’s harmless. There was a demon attack at the same time—something I have it on good authority Solomon never trafficked in.” 

“You think Sam is trying to outdo his father?” 

“That’s what boys do, isn’t it?” Cameron asked. 

James shrugged. Ron had never tried to outdo his father, though he supposed there’d been a point when he’d been younger when he’d hoped to be a better swordsman than him someday. 

“There is also the concern that the queen of Kyaine’s brother-in-law has been abducted by the Sorcerer King,” Obadiah said mournfully. “He has been missing for a good while now and that’s where he was headed.”

“In addition,” Cassiopeia added, thoughtful. “Just recently there was an attack on the man I told you about before, Theodore. The one who was trying to acquire stones. Someone sent killers into his house.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, but they were serious, and he said they were after the stones—of which he has two, he’s apparently the one who stole the wizard’s stone. When I asked him, he told me he’s trying to protect them from Solomon, which if that’s true, means there’s a likely candidate for his attacker. And that happened after you summoned us to this meeting.”

“That means there have been attacks on most of the stones recently,” James muttered, sipping at his tea. 

“On all of them,” Ron reminded him, though he wasn’t supposed to speak. The witches all looked at him, and he raised his eyebrow at James. “You were attacked too, and they wanted the stone, remember?” His chest buzzed a little in memory.

James looked at Ron for a long moment, but he sighed, a resigned look on his face. “Yes. That’s true.”

“So it seems like Sam is resorting to more direct violence than did his father to get the stones,” Cassiopeia said. “And you don’t think this bears doing something about?” 

“You people,” James reminded the table, as Ron bristled at the tone, “were the ones who wanted to get a coalition together with the other magic-practitioners. What’s taking so long? I’m not going to storm his castle on my own.”

“It took the attack to roust the archmage from his stupor,” Cameron said. “But he’s committed now. Incidentally, James, I’ll need you to come visit us in the academy in a few weeks. You need to meet their chosen one.”

“Why?”

“There are some things I think you can teach him.”

James looked at her for a moment, and something seemed to pass between them before James nodded. “Okay. If you insist.”

“I rather do,” Cameron said, expression even. Ron wondered why it was that witches couldn’t ever just say things. 

“It would be best,” Obadiah said, “if the academy could serve as the staging ground for the offensive. The wizards down south are already sending an envoy up north as well, and it’s the mages with the best institutional setup, and the ear of the northern king.”

“It would make more sense for the organization to be done down south,” Jezebel said. “The Fury Plateau is part of Kyaine.”

“There’s been some political unrest there lately,” Cassiopeia said, nodding at Obadiah. “And Obadiah is right. It makes the most sense for the academy to organize it. We should be trying to get in touch with the sorcerer clans as well and having them participate.”

“I have a lead on that,” Cameron said, nodding. “Not to worry.”

“What lead?” James asked.

“I’ve befriended a sorcerer, one who already wants to stop Solomon. I’ll get her to contact the other clans, I expect they’ll listen to her.”

James nodded, watching Cameron carefully. “Okay. And as for us, we’ll have to help too.”

“All of us,” Jezebel said, nodding as well. “We can’t sit back and let the others do all the work—not when we’re the ones who started it.” 

“Arguably, we should be taking a leadership role in all this,” Timothy said, leaning forward on the table again. “It’s been us saying this all along, and it’s you that Sam came to with this information.” 

“It doesn’t matter who’s in charge as long as we knock the Sorcerer King off his throne,” Cassiopeia said to Timothy, gently. “What matters is all of us working together. That’s what we’re going to need to win here, especially if he’s got contracts with demons.”

“Should we draw in this Theodore of yours?” James asked Cassiopeia. Ron was really impressed with how, despite saying the Coven table was a circle of equals, James effortlessly led the conversation in a way that was clear he was in charge. “Assuming he’s telling the truth about being opposed to Solomon—and presumably Sam.”

Cassiopeia made a noise, nodding. “I think it can’t hurt. He’s…not the most pleasant person, Theodore. Not who I’d have chosen to be on our side, that’s for sure. But he’s got a lot of resources. He’s…distracted at the moment, but once he’s recovered I’ll talk to him about joining the party.”

“If he’s serious about protecting the stones, at the very least he should be talked into releasing them into the custody of someone who can actually do it,” Cameron said. “Though the same could be said for the archmage and his stone. I’m not convinced he’s the best person to be sitting on it—he’s hoping to bind it to his chosen one and I don’t think the reasons are entirely altruistic.”

“Impress upon him how dangerous it is,” Timothy suggested. “Surely he doesn’t want to kill the boy by mistake.”

“Surely,” Cameron agreed, in a tone that suggested that was anything but sure. “In any case, I have a handle on him, and on the sorcerers. Let’s focus on getting this little shit off his throne before he kills someone we like?”

James nodded, watching the table as he had been all morning. He was looking for a traitor, Ron knew. Whether he’d found one yet Ron didn’t know, but he was sure James would tell him when he did. “I agree, if you all think that’s best. We can’t let him or the people who work for him hurt anyone else. Speaking of which, let’s talk about my mother.” 

The Coven meeting went on all day. Ron stood there behind James all day, supporting him as best he could.


	43. People Can’t Help But Influence Each Other, for Good or Ill

“We’ll come see you again soon.”

“Past experience has made it hard for me to believe that.”

“We will. Maybe after Ron’s birthday in a few weeks.”

“All right. Well, you know you’re always welcome here.”

“I know.”

“You’re not always welcome at our house,” Jay said.

“I’m coming over anyway.”

Ron smiled as he watched James interact with his family, the easy way he was with Jay and Tana nothing like how strained he’d been last year. It was closer to the way Ron had been with Owen before he’d left.

Ron missed Owen. He wondered if there was some way to talk Owen into coming and visiting him in the forest. Maybe a letter. Owen would totally leave home after a mysterious letter.

He’d inevitably start hitting on Tana, though. Ron wondered if she would kill him.

“Alright,” James said, sighing. “We should go.”

“Thank you for having us,” Ron said, smiling at Josephine.

“There is always room for family, Ron,” she said to him, smiling. Ron coloured, not having expected that. 

“Actually,” James said, looking at Ron, also oddly red in the face. “There’s one more thing. Ron, can you…” he made a ‘go away’ gesture. “Just for a minute?”

“Uh, sure,” Ron said, wandering off towards the path, glancing over his shoulder as James bowed his head and started talking to his grandmother about something. 

“What are they on about?” Spike asked, landing from nowhere on Ron’s shoulder. 

Ron shrugged his other shoulder. “Something secret.”

“Hm.” Spike gave them a look. “Okay. How did the meeting go? Did James get what he wanted?”

“No.” Ron shook his head. “He was looking for a traitor on the Coven. He didn’t find one.”

“And that’s bad?”

“I guess it depends on whether there really is a traitor or not,” Ron said. He knew James was worried there was, but he couldn’t well keep the Coven here indefinitely and probe them for answers. He was a little frustrated. 

“I guess.” Spike crossed his arms. “How’s everything else going?”

“Fine,” Ron said.

“Everything.”

“Everything is fine,” Ron said, before Spike could ask anything else.

Spike looked at him for a second. “Okay.” He nodded. “I’m going to go see what’s up over there. See you at the house later.”

“See you,” Ron said as he buzzed away. 

Ron wasn’t left alone for long, though. “Hey,” Jay said, joining him with Tana, also looking over at James and Josephine, who had summoned Julia to talk to them as well. James’s stance said he wanted to hide. 

“Hey.”

“Can I just say…” Jay looked from James to Ron and back. “He seems really happy.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, nodding. “He does.”

“With you, he means,” Tana added. “You’re good for him.”’

“I…”

“After what happened, he became a grumpy, insular jerk,” Jay said, shrugging. “But can you blame him? And we didn’t help.”

“We ignored him,” Tana agreed. “Didn’t make any effort to connect for a long time.’

“He killed your dad,” Ron told them, gently. He understood, and he knew James did too. “He knew why.”

“Yeah. Our dad was an evil piece of shit who tried to kill our mom and kidnap us, and who helped Aunt Jocelyn kill grandpa and the baby and Delilah and Joey.” Tana crossed her arms. “He was our dad, though. We were just kids. We didn’t…”

“We didn’t take it well.” 

“And we took it out on him.”

“He understood,” Ron told them again. “He understands.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Jay said. “He let us do it. He never told us off for blaming him. And we let him blame himself. He was just a kid too. He…well, he let us ruin whatever we had, and by the time we realized we had to stop and be a family again, it was too late. We’d pushed him away.”

“He loves you guys,” Ron insisted.

Tana smiled. “What we’re saying is, he deserves someone like you. And having you around has made him happier than anything else. He’s talking to us again.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Sure you did, Ron,” Jay said, nodding. “Anyway. We just wanted to say thank you. And that we’re glad you’re staying with him.”

“I am too,” Ron said, smiling at them. “Come over for supper in a few days, okay? I’ll make something good.”

“We don’t want to…”

“He’d like it.”

They looked at each other, then over at James. “Well, you’re the expert,” Jay said, laughing to himself. “We’ll come by, then. But if he kicks us out, it’s on you.”

“He won’t,” Ron promised.

“What are you three conspiring about?” James asked, joining them. 

“Done talking?”

“Yes. Answer the question.”

“I’ll tell you later,” Ron said. “And when I ask you what you were doing over there with the two of them you’re going to say the same thing.”

James held Ron’s gaze for a minute, but he sighed. “Okay. Let’s go. I’ll see you guys later.”

“Bye, James.”

James waved at his cousins, and at his grandmother. “Thank you,” he called out, raising his voice just a bit. 

And they were off, James sighing. “I want a nap.”

“Only five more hours until we’re home.”

“Don’t remind me. Grandma gave me an idea for a spell to get rid of all the roots, but I don’t think I’m up to trying it today. Remind me tomorrow.”

“Don’t remind you of the walk, remind you of the roots. Got it.” Ron nodded, putting his arm around James. “It was good to see your family.”

“Yes. It would be nice if we could do it for something other than a Coven meeting sometime.”

“Well, it’s not like you need permission to visit your family, James,” Ron reminded him. “You could just…come over.”

“I guess.” James sighed, looking out into the woods. “I kind of…wish the house wasn’t so far away. But at the same time I like being on our own.”

“I know what you mean,” Ron said. “It’s nice to be alone together.”

“Yeah.” James nodded. “In any case, that was a huge waste of time. I didn’t figure out who was working with Solomon’s people.”

“Maybe nobody is?” Ron asked. “Do you think Sam could have lied to you?”

“It’s possible.” James made a face. “Anyway, this whole thing is going to be a right mess. Going to the capital, and the coalition and, just…ugh.” He huffed out a breath. “Ugh.”

“It’s okay,” Ron said, kissing James’s cheek as they walked. “You don’t have to wade into any of it alone. I’ll be here with you the whole way.”

James smiled, wrapping his arm around Ron as well. “Then it should be easy.”

Walking with arms around each other, they headed home.


End file.
